General aviation saves the day

Shön Taylor is one of a handful of people who can support the power plant industry when challenges arise. He is also a pilot, which puts him and his company – Red Rock Reef – in rarified air.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor received a call from a large power plant operator in Northern California. A telemetry problem had the company facing decertification of one of its plants. Like a pilot whose certificate has been revoked and cannot fly, a power plant that loses its certification can no longer sell power to the grid.

“I don’t have to tell you how big of a deal that could be,” Taylor remembers. “Literally none of the companies, vendors, or other engineering firms that were involved in the build out or the maintenance of this plant were in any position to deal with it or even willing to try. Because of the security at the plant, you had to be onsite in order to do anything about it. We were asked if we would do it. We hopped in the Mooney and we flew up.”

Using general aviation aircraft to build their business and come to the aid of clients was a decision Taylor and his wife made when they first decided to start the company in 1995.

“We live an aviation lifestyle,” he says, noting he and his wife, Rebecca, live on Sky Ranch Airport (3L2) in Sandy Valley, Nevada.

But in 1995, the couple were in Southern California, where their new company was an internet service provider providing dial-up internet access. It was just a year later the company stopped offering services to consumers and went “all commercial.”

“I call that the single smartest business decision I ever made,” he says.

Over the years, the company has evolved into a “managed services provider.”

“We manage entire business networks, enterprise networks, and institutional networks,” he explains. “We develop software, provide network support, and IT support for our clients.”

And while the company employs professionals in several countries around the world, it often comes down to Taylor being the one using the Mooney to get on site and solve a client’s problems.

When he was called upon to save the day for that power company in Northern California, his corporate pilot, Steve Van Frank, was able to fly into a general aviation airport, Buchanan Field Airport (KCCR) in Concord, California, which is just 13 minutes away from the front gate of the power plant.

“We were able to fly into that little airport in IFR conditions,” he says, recalling that was also during the time of the wildfires, with visibility so bad “you couldn’t see the ground.” 

Once they navigated through all that, they landed at KCCR and the FBO had a car waiting for them. 

When he arrived at the power plant, he remembers with a chuckle that the receptionist announced over the loudspeaker: “Shön Taylor, the Red Rock pilot, is in parking lot 40.”

He notes he never gets that kind of reception when he flies via the airlines. 

“It was just the novelty of us flying ourselves there, but what they really took away was ‘Thank goodness for small airplanes and people who can do this,’ because they had a real problem. But we were able to get up there very quickly, find the problem, and resolve it. That would not have been possible in the absence of GA.”

He acknowledges that he could have jumped in his car, rather than his plane, to tackle the issue. 

“The car would have been easily a 10- or 11-hour drive across two states. A two-hour airplane ride leaves you the opportunity to actually get something done during the business day, not the least of which is to be home for dinner and in your own bed at night, living with your airplane.”

Taylor muses that one takeaway from the pandemic may be that more people will see the value of general aviation.

“GA was much more significant in our business in 2020,” he says. “It has proven to be a lifesaver for some of our clients, including some municipal users who couldn’t get us there any other way.”

Taylor, who owns a Piper Cherokee, has immersed himself in aviation another way: As a sponsor of “Miss Min,” a 1973 highly modified Cassutt IIIM owned by Jim Jordan, who races her at Reno in the Formula One Class.