This year, family owned Duncan Aviation is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its satellite shop network. Roughly a year before the first shop opened in 1985, then Duncan Aviation President J. Robert Duncan conceived of a series of agreements between Duncan Aviation’s skilled avionics technicians and well-respected maintenance shops at busy airports around the country. Ideally, he wanted those shops to provide local customers with access to Duncan Aviation’s experienced avionics technicians without necessitating travel to the main facility in Lincoln, Nebraska.
J. Robert Duncan credits Duncan Aviation team member Don Fiedler with the success of the satellite shops. “It was my concept, but Don ran with it,” said Duncan.
Fiedler, currently the manager of new business development for components, has a keen understanding of both avionics and people. As a result, he was charged with finding compatible businesses, setting up the avionics shops and staffing them. Fiedler and his team opened the first Duncan Aviation avionics satellite in 1985 at the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas. Later that year, the second shop opened in Cleveland, Ohio, and in 1986, two more facilities were established. Not all of the shops have had the aircraft base needed to maintain full-time, bricks-and-mortar status. Yet the demand for the shops has grown and Duncan Aviation has continued to add them at busy corporate airports. Currently, there are 25 satellite shops and additional fixed locations around the United States, from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale and Bridgeport to Van Nuys. In addition to our main facilities in Lincoln, Nebraska, Battle Creek, Michigan and Provo, Utah, customers can now get avionics work and parts for their aircraft at any of those 25 locations.
Visit the Duncan Aviation website (www.duncanaviation.aero/facilities) and click Avionics Shops for more information.
