Millie Hernandez-Becker has an office in a far corner of Westchester County Airport removed from the commercial traffic and hubbub of the main terminal. A sales and marketing specialist and consultant in private aviation, she works from the office of one of her clients, Houston-based Million Air, a fixed base operator serving private travelers and aircraft from Hangar M at the county airport.
The remote location of the airport”™s corporate and privately operated hangars on Tower Road was by design, Hernandez-Becker said in an interview with the Business Journal, to keep wealthy Westchester plane owners out of the public eye. That maintenance of customers”™ privacy, along with the aircraft they own or charter, continues today. “Discretion is a key ingredient here,” she said.
- Millie Hernandez-Becker inside Hangar M at Westchester County Airport. Photo by John Golden
The owner of Skyqueen Enterprises, a one-woman company she launched in 2004, Hernandez-Becker describes herself as “a hired gun” for the general aviation industry. She consults with individuals and companies shopping for planes or fractional ownership of one, arranges charter flights and works with business clients to develop their sales and marketing and, as she does for Million Air, to boost their market share of airport fuel sales. “I also like to put people together,” she said, connecting clients in need of capital or an architect, contractor or attorney.
For airplane purchases, “I can make sure that people are making good decisions and they are aware of the consequences of the decisions they”™re making. If you don”™t know enough, you can really get hurt in this business. I”™m insurance that you don”™t get hurt at this kind of purchase.”
“Right now business is very good,” she said. “In the past five months, I have three clients who are purchasing airplanes. They”™re first-time buyers” acquiring private planes for the businesses they own, she said.
It”™s a buyer”™s market at airports. A used Hawker 850, for example, a popular eight-seat charter jet, sells for about $4 million. “That airplane used to sell for $12 million to $16 million,” Hernandez-Becker said.
The Great Recession sent values of used airplanes into a tailspin from which they have not recovered.
“There was a correction right after the recession,” she said. “All airplane values have dropped dramatically. Those airplanes that are still out there, they”™re going to remain low. They”™re not going to come back up. They”™re not like a house.”
Working with both business and leisure travelers, “I”™ve taken board members to visit factories in the Caribbean, in India, in China, and I”™ve also flown people to Nantucket” for vacations, she said.
“I”™ve flown Hillary Clinton when she was senator,” said Hernandez-Becker, whose discretion in business keeps her from dropping any more names of the VIPs and celebrities who have used her services. Her corporate clients include Flex Jet, Aircraft Services Group, Goldman Sachs and The Carlyle Group.
“I don”™t work for everybody. I have the luxury of being able to choose who I work for. Companies that I work for are special.”
“To work with Goldman Sachs, The Carlyle Group, these great financial minds, it”™s very valuable for me to be at the table. Typically I”™m the only woman at the table,” she said.
“I love this business. Aviation is very infectious. It”™s very much a culture.
“We are a community that is very driven by excellence, by procedures, by the 24/7 culture. You”™re on call all the time. It”™s very exciting.”
The daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants who operated a chain of bodegas and later a medallion taxi business in Manhattan, Hernandez-Becker caught the aviation infection as a 22-year-old first-grade teacher in the New York City school system. She took a summer job at LaGuardia Airport as a reservations agent with New York Air. It led her to abandon one fledgling career for another, more exciting one.
She learned the industry at a series of jobs as ticket agent, flight attendant and an airline terminal manager at LaGuardia. In 1986, she joined Westchester Air, a former charter flight company at the county airport. The boss who recruited her and Westchester Air”™s founder, David M. Becker, became her husband four years later.
A pilot, Becker was killed in a plane crash in 1994, leaving Hernandez- Becker to continue their 22-employee business on her own.
“I always say business requires passion, planning and a partner,” she said. “He was my partner. Not only did I suffer a loss personally, but I suffered a loss in the business.”
She continued to run Westchester Air until 2003, when she sold the company to Jet Equity, a private equity firm in Greenwich, and joined the new owner as a partner and vice president of marketing and sales for Skyport, the fixed base operator Jet Equity acquired at the Westchester airport. She continued in that marketing role when Landmark Aviation acquired Skyport about two years later.
Hernandez-Becker remarried about four years after her husband”™s fatal accident and was raising a son from that marriage while running the aviation business. Their boy was diagnosed with autism when he was 18 months old.
“That is something that you”™re never prepared for,” Hernandez-Becker said. “It required an intense amount of focus, attention and commitment. ”¦I had to be his CEO; I couldn”™t be the CEO of Westchester Air. So I sold it. I made a choice.”
“It took me 2½ years” to close a deal. “You just don”™t sell a company overnight.”
Hernandez-Becker launched Skyqueen Enterprises in the transition from her nearly two decades at Westchester Air. “I wanted to establish myself as a brand and as an entity,” she said. Working from her family”™s home in Pound Ridge, “I started very small.”
In a career journey that has spanned more than 30 years, “Aviation has taken me places I never would have gone if I had stayed where I was as a school teacher,” Hernandez-Becker said. And that 24/7 journey continues.
“I enjoy what I do, so it”™s easy for me. It”™s part of who I am. It”™s really a part of my makeup,” she said.
“Stay tuned,” the owner of Skyqueen Enterprises advised. “This is an industry that is growing. The problem that we”™re having is that the infrastructure at these airports is not keeping up with the new aircraft.”
Immersed in that growing industry, “I think I”™m exactly where I”™m supposed to be,” said Hernandez-Becker. “I think it”™s pretty nice to be able to say that.”
Wow! It is outstanding to see, you a woman own this dynasty in the field of aviation. I am a black flight instructor in Memphis. So, I understand some of the crap you have gone through to get to where you are. I love it…By the way, what is a nice Citation 10 selling for, new?