Partners, pals and Pegasus: SBA honors small businesspersons of year.

• Author: Stomierowski, Peg
• Position: Cover story

GETTING FROM "NO" TO "GO!"

When Pegasus partners Carlos Nelson and Roy Ardern first approached KeyBank to finance their vision for an international aircraft repair and de-icing service at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, the answer was "no." But, says KeyBank business banker Earl Carson, with some coaching from Key, the partners crafted a detailed business plan, secured some impressive airline contracts and scored the SBA loan they needed to get Pegasus airborne.

Alaska is a land of small business, so to be any kind of a lead dog takes the kind of focus that Pegasus Aircraft Maintenance is known for. Two men who became fast business partners in building Pegasus in Anchorage--Carlos Nelson and Roy Ardern--are being recognized by the SBA in Alaska as Small Businesspersons of the Year for 2007.

George Monks, vice president of maintenance, who came on board two years after Nelson and Ardern, is not so surprised. "Carlos, my partner, is pretty determined," he says.

By Nelson's account, revenue at Pegasus grew by 70 percent in 2004, 139 percent in 2005, and 95 percent in 2006. Based on its track record, he projects doing six times the firm's revenue and business volume by 2010.

Nelson and Ardern, CEO/CFO and VP of operations respectively, met as aircraft mechanics in the mid-1990s at Federal Express in Los Angeles, where they were trained on B747, MD-11, DC-10 and B727 craft. Both 1987 high school graduates, they'd never met in their hometown of Memphis. Nelson became a crew chief in the Air Force, while Ardern worked at FedEx while attending college.

Aircraft maintenance tends to appeal to adrenaline junkies, says the trio. It's speed-driven, global, exacting, cutting-edge, and 24/7 by nature--"real stud ducks" is a term used by Bill Brooks, a 91-year-old Alaska aviation advocate and mentor of sorts. The stakes are high. "If these airplanes aren't in the air," he observes, "they aren't making any money."

"You have to be very competent, because you're not working on a car, you're working on an airplane. Even though (many of them) are cargo planes, you can kill people. You can get a bad reputation."

CLOSE TIES

When Ardern met Nelson at Fed Ex, Ardern says, Nelson was trying to buy a "sea-container" full of Levi's 501s and ship it to Australia, where they sell for $80 to $100. "When I saw how crazy and ambitious he was, I knew I was in the right company. We became good friends." They shared big ideas and ambitions.

One of Ardern's ideas involved importing gold from Thailand. He was talking about problems with the idea one...