Dominion Propeller Corp.

• Author: Phelps, Jack E.
• Position: North Stars: the 49th State's small business success stories. - Company Profile

Jerry Allsup, president of Dominion Propeller Corp., sits in his office and talks matter-of-factly about his company's rise from a small shop with less than $1,000 inventory to the largest propeller repair shop in Alaska. He comes across as a quiet fellow, but his unassuming exterior belies the reservoir of energy and enthusiasm that has made Dominion a high-flying success story. When Allsup was still in high school, he worked as a cleanup boy for Slim Walston at Northern Propeller in Anchorage. Later, he got a job as a prop mechanic at another local outfit, Alaska Propeller Specialists, and stayed there three years. In 1977, while working as an automotive mechanic, he heard that Walston was thinking of getting out of the prop business. The two got together, talked prices, and before he knew it, Allsup was in business for himself. Renaming the company Dominion Propeller, Allsup started out with high aspirations for his business. "I wanted to do a better job, provide a better service, than anybody in the business," he says. "My goal was to become the biggest propeller shop in Alaska." That goal solidified recently when his closest competitor and former employer, Alaska Propeller Specialists, folded.

Dominion's rise from a small one-man operation in 1977 to Alaska's only full-service airplane propeller shop in 1993 has not been meteoric, but it has been steady. In the winter of 1987-1988, Allsup hired two full-time permanent employees. "Up until then, it had just been me and some part-time people," he recalls. Since then, employment at Dominion has more than doubled.

Revenue growth has also been steady for the Anchorage firm. "I didn't make much that first year," Allsup recalls. "I was by myself and still working another job. And I only had the business for about nine months."

But the second year, 1978, the business brought in $80,000 in gross revenues. In 1993, the company will report gross revenues of more than $800,000, Allsup estimates.

His determination to become Alaska's biggest propeller repair shop by providing the best service has become the hallmark of Dominion Propeller. Landon Smith, supervisor of the blade department, says that at Dominion, "quality is stressed above all else." Smith, who started working with Allsup in February 1988, says he likes working for Dominion because "I'm allowed to do the job correctly and to do it well because of the emphasis on quality."

Tom Deal, parts department manager for ERA Aviation, agrees...