Extract
THE SKY'S NO LIMIT.
North Carolina's corporate jet setters see company wings not as perks but the best way to broaden their horizons.
Spring blossoms scatter as a stiff breeze sweeps across the tarmac. Last night's rain has ended, making way for a brilliant dawn as a United Dominion Industries Ltd. executive strides out to a gleaming, white Cessna Citation Ultra jet on a secluded side of Charlotte's airport. Bernard Burns lowers himself into a soft, tan seat in a cabin that smells of warm leather. Outside, the pitch of engines is rising. It's just after 8, and the scent of jet fuel in the damp air drifts through the open door. All around, similar planes are beginning to taxi out on the ramp. Two-thirds of the way across the country, morning is breaking in Huron, S.D., population 13,000, home of the annual Fall Ringneck Pheasant Festival and South Dakota cheerleading championships. Three years ago, United Dominion bought a company here that makes metal prison doors. "The kind where you slide the food in through a slot," Burns explains. The division he then headed took on the factory, and Burns, now executive vice president of the parent company, began making regular...See the full content of this document
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