Evolution of an Enterprise, Chapter 1: Prepared for Takeoff

Shelby Bodenhamer ordered Binh Uebinger a Coors Light draft when Uebinger arrived for a lunch meeting in June at Bumsteads Roadhouse n’ Grill in Nixa.

Uebinger was operating SC Hood Cleaning Professionals as a side gig, and he was looking for a way to grow his restaurant-hood-cleaning and concrete-pressure-washing business into a full-time venture.

Uebinger also was working as a service representative at Acura of Springfield and had built a rapport with Bodenhamer, an Acura customer. Uebinger wanted to mine Bodenhamer for advice, because Bodenhamer had owned a successful pressure-washing business in Fayetteville, Ark., in the mid-1990s.

The brainstorming session quickly shifted from cleaning concrete to cleaning multimillion-dollar aircraft.

Bodenhamer had owned Your Leisure Time, a boating concierge company, from 2002–07 at Table Rock Lake. Your Leisure Time, now under different ownership, provides many services, including cleaning and detailing of high-end boats.

Bodenhamer told his young friend that he should launch a similar company for private airplanes. Bodenhamer was confident that his idea was a winner, but he didn’t have the time or connections at Springfield-Branson National Airport to pursue the concept.

Uebinger, however, had some connections and soon began examining the feasibility of starting the first airplane detailing company in Springfield.

“I just threw some colts out to pasture,” Bodenhamer said. “He reined them in.”

After leaving the restaurant, Uebinger’s first call was to Josh Somers, a friend and Acura colleague, who had been a pilot since 2002.

Uebinger and Somers already were discussing a partnership in SC Hood Cleaning Professionals, but this new idea really sparked their entrepreneurial spirit.

With Somers on board, Uebinger next called Jeff Stone, another Acura customer who also happened to be a pilot with Loren Cook Co. Stone affirmed that there was enough of a local market to support a company that would clean and detail private airplanes, Uebinger said.

After about four months of research, a month of wrestling with red tape at Springfield-Branson National Airport and an initial investment of about $25,000, Uebinger and Somers launched Voyager Industries LLC.

On Dec. 4, Voyager Industries landed its first paying job – a $400 exterior dry wash of a Challenger 604 owned by trucking firm Prime Inc.

“The things that can happen within these next 10 or 11 months could open up a lot of doors,” Uebinger said. “It’s definitely exciting and exhilarating.”