Fighter's squadron.

• Author: Turner, Walter R.
• Position: TIMCO Pres. Charlie Bell

Trained as a warrior, Charlie Bell likes to leap into the fray. That combative spirit has made his company a winner.

Charlie Bell always plays hardball. In the early '70s, while working for New York City-based Seaboard World Airlines air-cargo carrier, he flew to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, to see a colonel about a government contract. "This colonel was proud of his reputation in racquetball," recalls Robert Neff, a colleague of Bell's then. So any self-respecting salesman loses the game and wins a client, right? Not Bell. "Charlie not only destroyed the guy in racquetball - he got the contract," Neff says. "He's a tiger."

That no-guts, no-glory attitude suits aviation. And it suits TIMCO President and CEO Bell, considering he's had some tough calls since founding the aircraft-maintenance company in 1990. He had to fight to get it off the ground. He had to fight to find it a home at Piedmont Triad International Airport. He had to fight the Machinists when the union tried to organize it.

But his toughest battle has been persuading Waltham, Mass.-based Primark Corp., TIMCO's parent, not to sell - it tried once, only to see the deal fall through. Bell keeps playing hard, and so far he's winning. Primark is not likely to sell it any time soon, he says. "We're very successful. We're just in our sixth year, and over the past three years we've come close to doubling our income each year."

TIMCO, an acronym for Triad International Maintenance Corp., strips down DC-8s, 727s and DC-10s - whatever clients fly its way. Then it works on the frames and fits whatever the customer wants in them. It'll upfit a passenger plane with new toilets, galleys, electronics, you name it.

On average, Bell says, planes are at TIMCO three and a half to four weeks. Some 6,000 man-hours don't come cheap - labor alone can run a quarter-million dollars. But the upgrade can extend the aircraft's life 10 to 15 years.

It's a good niche. An express-package company can buy a used DC-8 for around $11 million, spend $6 million on an upfit and get back a cargo airplane. And the plane's life span will match that of a new 757 costing $60 million.

When it started, TIMCO was 80%-85% focused on remodeling or creating cargo planes - its specialty is rebuilding DC-8 passenger jets to carry cargo. Now that it can handle 14 planes at one time in its three hangars, the ratio is 60-40 cargo carriers to passenger planes. TIMCO counts the three main operators of DC-8s, all cargo carriers, as customers - Seattle-based Airborne Express, Redwood City, Calif.-based Emery Worldwide and Atlanta-based United Parcel Service. The three companies combined operate 130 DC-8s. Over time, TIMCO will service many of UPS's planes and all of Airborne's and Emery's. TIMCO also handles passenger planes for Continental and Northwest airlines.

TIMCO had 125 employees its first day in 1990. It has 1,150 on its books now, plus 200 free-lance contractors. 1995 revenues jumped 71% over 1994, to $79 million. Net income rose from $1.6 million to $3.0 million. When trade magazine Aircraft Maintenance International picked the world's top-12 overhaul companies, TIMCO was one.

Stock in TIMCO is high, as is literally true with Primark. In part thanks to TIMCO, the parent's shares more than doubled in price in 1995. The stock reached an all-time...