AvQuotes.com uses the Internet to match people seeking maintenance with more than 50 maintenance facilities. It’s a simple, logical idea that apparently never occurred to anyone before Sheldon Early and his wife went to lunch one afternoon. “Six years ago I was at Stevens Aviation as vice president of business development,” Early, AvQuotes president, told AIN. “I had a sales staff out trying to quote maintenance jobs all the time, but they faced a problem when calling on a flight department: everyone was out flying. It was very frustrating.
“I was sitting in my office looking at a map of the U.S. thinking about hiring independent sales reps in specific geographic regions. As I was mulling over the idea of paying them a referral fee for any leads they generate, my wife called and suggested we meet for lunch,” he recounted. “Over lunch I told her about my idea and she simply asked, ‘Why don’t you do it on the Internet instead?’ It didn’t take long to come up with the idea for AvQuotes.”
