feature IMAGE NOT INCLUDED GARAGE-BAND AVIONICS SHOP GROWS P BIG S T O R Y B Y D A V E H U G H E S ro Star Aviation LLC was born in Paul Taylor's house in New Hampshire in 1997 with offices in the basement and all the equipment needed to run an avionics repair shop in the garage. The business started in a garage, as did many Silicon Valley startups. Taylor, Kevin Harriman and Bernd Munzenmayer had all worked together at an established avionics repair shop in New Hampshire. But that company had been taken over by a freight hauling company, and the three men thought the new management's inexperience in corporate aviation was taking them down the wrong path. Harriman is now the managing partner and leads the operations team at Pro Star in Londonderry, New Hampshire. He got his start as an avionics technician in the U.S. Air Force and worked at Lockheed California Company on the P-3 modification team before going to work for Stead Aviation in New Hampshire. Henry Laughlin also helped start Pro Star and is the majority owner. He owned another Part 145 repair station in 1988, and Pro Star initially worked under that repair station certificate. Harriman and his partners knew what most people in the avionics repair industry know: It's a business built on personal relationships and understanding the needs of the customer. The new owners of the avionics repair shop where they worked together had lost track of this essential fact, as they misunderstood what makes business aviation tick. On a trip to the 1997 National Business Aviation Association Convention, the men decided to strike out on their own. And since they didn't have a hangar available in 1997 to set up shop, they decided to take their installation and repair business on the road to wherever the customer's aircraft was located. Pro Star 42 avionics news * february 2021