TAS became a Bell Service Center in 1992, and then made a heavy push into Latin America — a geographic sector that accounts for more than half the company’s revenues, says Woodard.

“My Dad and I focused on completions,” he explains. “Completions of new helicopters was the best piece of business that was out there.”

According to Townes, TAS recorded some 200,000 man hours of work in 2007, 25 percent of which was for a government contract. The other 75 percent came from civil completions and retrofits.

Says Townes, “Our goal here to build a $100-150 million rotorcraft services consolidation that is centered around this initial platform investment, but grows from there. It’s pretty transparent what we’re doing.

“From a customer perspective, they know that they’re going to get an increasingly larger depot of technical capacity here.”

And as with Keystone, the goal will be to sell the expanded ‘depot’ to an interest such as Sikorsky. “There’s no perfect time to sell a company,” comments Townes, “but it was a perfect time for Sikorsky because they really needed it. It was great for them and worked out really well for Keystone and for all the shareholders. The institutional equity had a 52 percent internal rate of return on their capital, which is phenomenal.

“All the guys up at Keystone kept their jobs, and it’s a centerpiece business unit of Sikorsky now.”