By Melanie Stawicki Azam
As a toddler, Frederick “Rick” Brown (’67, Flight Training, ’72, DB) soared through the Central Florida skies with his grandmother Peggy O'Neil, who was a pilot in the 1940s and instilled in him a lifelong love of flying.
“My grandma took me flying when I was only 18 months old,” says the retired U.S. Air Force pilot who spent 35 years at United Airlines.
Brown’s passion for entrepreneurship is just as strong as his love for flight, but it ignited years later when he was a student at Embry-Riddle. It was there that he encountered then-university President Jack Hunt and watched him grow a small flight school into a full-fledged university.
“Jack Hunt was a visionary and an entrepreneur. He was a really strong mentor for me,” says Brown, who with his wife, Jan, launched an airline in 1994 under the Frontier Airlines name. A different airline with the same name had operated previously from 1950-1986.
It was Brown’s love of aviation, entrepreneurship and of his alma mater that prompted him to make a major planned gift to Embry-Riddle this past spring. The gift will create the Rick and Jan Brown Endowed Scholarship and support the Daytona Beach College of Business’ Center for Entrepreneurship.
“With the Daytona Beach Campus celebrating 50 years of offering business degrees this year, Rick and Jan Brown’s endowed scholarship will help us continue to attract students into our ever-evolving, industry-responsive programs,” says Michael J. Williams, dean of the College of Business at the Daytona Beach Campus.
Additionally, the Browns’ gift will have a tremendous, positive impact on students pursuing their entrepreneurial ambitions at Embry-Riddle, says Michael R. Bowers, professor of entrepreneurship and director for the Center for Entrepreneurship.
“It’s all about giving back and mentoring,” Brown says. “Aviation is a wonderful career, and someone needs to continue to promote it at a university like Embry-Riddle.”
A True Florida Boy
Born in Ocala, Fla., Brown grew up in nearby Winter Park and initially studied engineering at the University of Florida.
But his heart was in aviation, not engineering, so he sold his car to buy a plane and enrolled in flight lessons at Embry-Riddle. At the time, the flight school had fewer than 50 students and a handful of instructors, so Hunt was just another face on campus.
“You knew everyone,” says Brown, who completed his flight training program in 1967 and became a flight instructor at Embry-Riddle. From late 1967 to early 1969, he also flew as a co-pilot for Shawnee Airlines. In 1969, United Airlines came knocking and Brown left Embry-Riddle to fly for them. When he was laid off two years later, he returned to Embry-Riddle to earn his bachelor’s degree.
“When I came back in 1971, I had three kids and I took 21 hours (of classes per semester),” he recalls. To help make ends meet during that time, he got a job flying for NASCAR.
He also watched Hunt’s vision come to fruition. “I watched the university grow and grow; each time I came back, there was a different building,” Brown says. “It became very professional and international.”
A Natural Entrepreneur
Brown returned to United Airlines, where he specialized in flight training, accident investigation and systems safety until he retired in 2004. He also served in the Air Force Reserve for 21 years, working as a pilot and director of flight safety.
But he was never satisfied just working for someone else. He was perpetually starting his own companies and doing consulting work.
“I’ve never had one job,” Brown says. “I am a true entrepreneur.”
In 1989, Brown bought Arnautical Incorporated in Denver, Colo., which did contract training for United Airlines; and then started a division of the company called Air Crew Resources, which provided flight training for foreign governments and airlines. That work revealed to him how much he loved training other aviators.
“It is a passion of mine that started as a flight instructor at Embry-Riddle,” Brown says. “You are a true mentor from the time you meet someone—and you show them the importance of standardization to being a [quality] team and a crew member.” He adds, “Standardization of procedure is a very important issue for safety in the airlines. It is critical.”
Frontier Days
Frontier Airlines wasn’t the first company Brown started, but it was the largest. Jan Brown had worked as a flight attendant for the original Frontier Airlines from 1976 until it went out of business in 1986. The couple had identified a definite need for an airline in the Denver market and started working out a plan in 1993 to launch a new Frontier Airlines.
“At a barbecue restaurant on a Sunday in Denver, we decided we were going to start an airline on a cocktail napkin,” Brown says. “It only took us nine months to start up.”
The Browns put their life savings into the project, recruited a team to help them start the airline and did an initial public offering to raise more funds.
“Networking is the backbone of any business,” Brown says. “The biggest challenge is putting together the team.”
The couple sold their share of the company in 1997, but they weren’t ready to walk away from aviation.
Brown continued to work in flight operations training and aviation safety, serving as a consultant for Boeing Training Services to Korean Airlines from 2007-2015. He also spoke at graduate schools in Korea on entrepreneurship and aviation learning styles.
Back to His Florida Roots
With three grown children and two grandchildren, Brown spends more time in Florida now, but he still does international consulting work. He most recently worked with an aviation training company in Dubai.
“I am still involved in flight training, because it is so important to be able to mentor,” he says.
He also supports his alma mater. The first official ambassador for the Daytona Beach Campus’ College of Business, in September, Brown was a guest presenter at Embry-Riddle’s Asia Campus in Singapore. On Dec. 1, 2015, he spent a day at the Daytona Beach Campus sharing his expertise with students.
“It’s important that people have an entrepreneurial spirit in aviation,” he says. “Jan and I want to encourage people to think outside the box and create things that could help people in aviation.”
For Brown, creating an endowed scholarship and supporting the growth of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Embry-Riddle is also a chance to further the work of his mentor, Jack Hunt, to improve the university and the field of aviation.
“Throughout my entire life, I always had this vision of contributing in some way to improve the field of aviation,” he says. “I think Jack would be proud of me.”