William Herp
William Herp is the President, CEO, and Co-Founder of Linear Air. He has a background in consumer marketing and used this to co-found e-Dialog, a 500 person online marketing company now owned by eBay Enterprise, with clients including Dell, British Airways, Avis, and CheapTickets. He served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at wine distributor Geerlings & Wade. He is also a member of the board of directors of Junior Achievement of Eastern Massachusetts and holds an airline transport pilot certificate.
Early life and education[edit]
Born in Louisville, Kentucky,[1] Herp received a Bachelor of Business Administration at the University of Notre Dame in 1984 and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1989.[2][3][4] He was vice president of the 1981 National Junior Achievers Conference.[5]
Early Career[edit]
After obtaining his degree, Herp started forming a cell phone company in 1989 named Event Cellular Communications that rented portable phones.[6] The company was sold three years later to Shared Technologies Fairchild just a year and a half after officially registering it as a company. Next, he became a wine wholesaler, which led to him being hired, from 1993 to 1995, as vice president and Chief Financial Officer for the wine distributor Geerlings & Wade.[7][3] Herp worked directly with Phillip D. Wade to obtain investors for their eventual IPO. After working for two full months on the drafting statement, they presented it to the SEC in May of 1994. However, the NASDAQ had rejected the listing offering for the National Market System and was instead going to list the company's IPO on the Small Cap market due to the company not meeting minimum assets and income requirements. After several days, they were able to convince the NASDAQ to list them on May 5th. While there were concerns about the company's stock being listed for only $8 a share, by December of 1994, this had increased to $16 a share, earning the company a position of 70th on the 1995 Inc. 100 list.[8]
Linear Air[edit]
After founding several businesses, Herp obtained a pilot's license in 1996, along with creating the business e-Dialog in the same year with his business partner Andy Estes. By 2003, he felt that e-Dialog could run more independently from him, giving him time to found Linear Air in Concord, Massachusetts. This resulted in his eventually selling e-Dialog to Ebay to work on his other projects.[7][1]
After working on a business model with Michael Goulian, Herp obtained an FAA Part 135 Air Carrier Certification for the company and officially began his business in August of 2004.[9] It began by using five Cessna Caravans to make air taxi flights across North America. In 2007, a Eclipse 500 was added and plans were made to obtain around 30 more very light jets over the next few years.[7][10][11][12] However, Eclipse declared bankruptcy in the 2008 economic recession, leading to aircraft supply issues for Linear Air.[13][14][15][12]
Linear Air's rapid expansion was done through a leasing plan for investors, where the planes would be bought by the investors and leased to Linear Air, the company giving them both a monthly payment for leasing the planes and allowing the investors to list the plane ownership as a tax benefit due to the depreciation from use.[16]
Herp later expanded the company's connections to a number of Cirrus pilots in the northeastern United States and set up a system of short point-to-point flights for customers. In 2015, he began seeking investors for around $2 million in order to expand the point-to-point system with 1000 other pilots.[17] The ultimate plan is to make a nationwide charter plane service titled the Linear Connect Digital Marketplace that would allow point-to-point flights to be booked anywhere in the United States.[18]
Accolades[edit]
Herp won the 2016 Internet Advertising Competition Award for Outstanding Achievement in Internet Advertising as a part of the Internet Advertising Competition for his company Linear Air.[19]
Personal life[edit]
Herp performs each summer with the touring show, Herpapalooza, along with his brothers, Cooper and Eli, and their respective grunge, classical, reggae bands. He is married to his wife Carolyn and has two daughters.[7]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Hart, Louise (August 4, 2013). "How to Score a Seat on a Private Jet for Less Than a Business-Class Airline Ticket". GQ. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ "First Mover Advantage: Meet Notre Dame's High-Tech Entrepreneurs". Notre Dame Business. No. 5. University of Notre Dame. Fall 2000. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Holden, Henry M. (April 2008). "Linear Air: Breaking into the VLJ Air Taxi Business". Airport Journals. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ Hanna, Julia (14 May 2008). "Getting Down to the Business of Creativity". Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
- ↑ Willey, Charley (9 August 1981). "1981 NAJAC officers greet delegates". The Achiever. p. 2.
- ↑ "Money Smarts: Avoid These Common Financing Mistakes". Entrepreneur. January 6, 2005. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Burger, Jeff (August 1, 2007). "William Herp". Business Jet Traveler. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ Mamis, Robert A. (May 1, 1995). "Going Public: The Making of a Millionaire". Inc. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ Richards, Jodi (July 6, 2006). "The New Charter". Airport Business Magazine. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ Hanna, Julia (March 1, 2009). "Your Taxi Is Waiting". Harvard Business School. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ Barrionuevo, Alexei (August 2, 2006). "Cabs in the sky". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Weisberger, Harry (February 2007). "Eclipse delivers first customer Model 500" (PDF). Aviation International News.
- ↑ Chase, Katie Johnston (4 January 2011). "Business travel takes off again at Hanscom Field". Boston Globe.
- ↑ Sarsfield, Kate (17 March 2015). "Linear Air seeks million-dollar investment to fund expansion". Flight International. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
- ↑ Randell, Bill (6 February 2014). "FlyORH: Linear Air CEO William Herp Talks Air Taxis". GoLocalWorcester.
- ↑ Covel, Simona (July 30, 2007). "Lease Deal Helps Plane Expansion Take Off". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ "Linear Air seeks $2 million investment". Corporate Jet Investor. March 3, 2015. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ Thurber, Matt (July 5, 2014). "Linear Charter Marketplace Aiming For Nationwide Branding". AIN Online. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
- ↑ "2016 Internet Advertising Competition Award". Web Marketing Association. 2016. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
Further reading[edit]
These discuss Linear Air, not William Herp:
- Anglisano, Larry (29 October 2013). "Linear Air: Cirrus For Hire". AVweb.
- Creedy, Kathryn (14 October 2015). "Airline Hassles Pushing Fliers To Private Aviation, Developing A $15B Industry: Part II". Forbes.
- Sarsfield, Kate (28 March 2017). "Linear Air expands in air taxi marketplace". Flight International.
- Sharkey, Joe (20 May 2008). "Air Taxis Fly Into Financial Turbulence". The New York Times.
External links[edit]
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