Introduction
In the aviation business, like in any other business, certain names rise to the top to be there for decades serving as beacons of progress and hope. Then some of them disappear, never to be heard of again. New generations grow up and for them names like Curtiss or Douglas or McDonnell do not mean anything any more. It is the sign of the times that in recent history we had to witness what was probably the biggest mass extinction in aviation history taking the likes of Pan Am and TWA with it…
Fortunately, others endure and continue to prove that by adapting to the changing environment, survival is possible. Jeppesen is such a company.
Perhaps best known by their aeronautical charts, often referred to by pilots as “jepps”, few people actually realize just how broad an offering Jeppesen has to support all kinds of aviation activities and probably even fewer people know where it all started or where it is all going for that matter. Visiting Jeppesen is like a voyage into the past and future of the aviation support industry.
The roots
Elrey Borge Jeppesen was born on 28 January 1907, in Lake Arthur, LA. He learned to fly when he was twenty. From age 18, he worked for a flying circus first as a ticket seller, then as a prop twister and finally as a wing-walker. He spent his savings, all of 500 bucks, to buy a used OX-5 Jenny and for a time he even run his own aerial circus in the Pacific Northwest.
After flying thousands of miles for the Fairchild Aerial Surveys Company, he joined the Boeing Air Transport Company in
1930 as an airmail pilot. It was during this time that he realized just how poor the air navigation system was and why so many pilots got lost and were killed in accidents that were due to insufficient information more than anything else.
As a stroke of genius, he bought a small, black notebook which he carried with him on every flight. “I didn’t start out to chart the skies, it’s just no one had done it before” – he said many years later. And charting the skies he did indeed. He added information in his little black book on every flight. Airfield layouts, obstacles, light information, terrain recognition marks, landing surface information and hundreds of other details got recorded every time he flew making the black notebook the most valuable source of navigational information available anywhere. He even recorded the telephone numbers of farmers around the various airfields so that they could be contacted to provide the latest weather information.
Aware of the dangers posed by uncharted obstacles around airports, he measured the heights of water and church towers and smokestacks and calculated the safe circling altitudes for all the fields he flew to.
To-day it may not sound like a big deal, but the introduction of radio navigation aids by the US government early in the 1930s was a huge step forward, one that could have made a lot of Jeppesen’s notes obsolete. However, in the spirit of adaptation and vision still characterizing his company, Jeppesen reacted by flying each leg of the new facilities, establishing the safe let-down procedure for many of the airports on his regular mail runs, noting the new information in his notebook.
Founding the company
Jeppesen’s strange little black notebook became famous in the pilot community and many of his colleagues started askinghim for information on airports they were going to fly to. Although at first not considering his note taking as the forerunner of commercial activity, in 1934 Jeppesen founded the company bearing his name to this day, using 450 bucks of borrowed money. He published his first Airway Manual the same year. The price: 10 dollars per copy. The 50 copies he produced sold out immediately.
Over the next 20 years he worked for United Airlines and labored to grow his company. WWII brought a big boost to Jeppesen since his was the only company around with a comprehensive set of navigational data for the United States.
Taking early retirement from United in 1954 he devoted all his time to the company until he sold it to time Mirror Publishing in 1961. He did however remain as President and later Chairman of the Board. He flew off into the sunset on 26 November 1996…
Jeppesen to-day
Jeppesen to-day is a strategic subsidiary of Boeing Commercial Aviation Services, a unit of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, which acquired Jeppesen in 2000. By that time, Jeppesen was a huge operation spanning the globe and with a product portfolio to match. This portfolio was built in part via carefully selected acquisitions over the years with a view to maximizing synergies between the various components of the company.
The days when Jeppesen was serving only aviation are long past.
In the air, Jeppesen continues to provide charting services but they also offer the benefits of the most advanced flight
information solutions and flight planning software. Customers can rely on Jepp for complete pilot training and operations management systems as well as more targeted tools and expertise.
On the water, Jeppesen helps operators control costs, improve efficiency and limit environmental impact through marine navigational data and operational information. They offer the renowned Jeppesen cartography and software for charting the most efficient course for any voyage.
Jeppesen’s rail and logistics solutions help generate more revenue from existing resources and equipment and they are also able to provide staff and equipment scheduling tools. For couriers and logistics providers, Jeppesen will determine the best locations for their distribution centers.
For us Jeppesen’s aviation related activities are of the most interest of course. You will not be surprised to learn that Jeppesen is one of just three companies on the planet fully qualified to develop RNP (Required Navigation Performance) procedures anywhere in the world and that their chart products continue to set the standard for accuracy and usability in the whole industry.
Jeppesen tomorrow
Jeppesen is leading the revolutionary move from paper based charts to digital applications that integrate information from multiple sources as pilots and airlines increasingly rely on electronic cockpit displays, including the EFB (Electronic Flight Bag). They are committed to developing easier and more efficient tools for flight planning, scheduling and operations management. The pioneering spirit lives on.
What about “Sanderson” in the company name?
Good, so you have noticed that we are referring to this wonderful company as Jeppesen, rather than the previously more common name Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc. Well, the name now is just Jeppesen, at least the Boeing subsidiary goes under that moniker.
Mr. Paul. E. Sanderson was another aviation pioneer, the founder of Sanderson Films and the father of modern multimediaflight training programs. He sold his business to the Times Mirror Company in 1968 which, as you will recall, had already bought Jeppesen seven years earlier. The two companies were merged in 1974 and that is how the name Jeppesen Sanderson came into being.
Mr. Sanderson passed away last year, on 23 October, joining Jeppesen on the turbulence free routes of eternity.
Epilogue
Jeppesen is an undisputed leader in the aviation and navigation services market. With more than 70 offices world-wide it is a truly global organization, maintaining top management in both North-America and Europe. The very name elicits images of progress, quality and customer orientation. A beacon at the top and one hopes a beacon that will stay there for all time.
Not bad for a business that started as a 10 c notebook…
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