Story ID: 05121411MX
Professional Aircraft Accessories Breaks Ground
By: David A. Lombardo
Caption: 
Word Count: 182
Professional Aircraft Accessories has begun construction of a 20,000-sq-ft expansion. The $2 million project is expected to be completed by next summer and will bring the company’s overall facility to 60,000 sq ft “We are bucking the economic trend,” Robert Bial, president of the Titusville, Fla.-based company, told AIN. “We were one of six companies Greenwich AeroGroup bought two years ago from Fairchild. We put together a good business plan that includes operations in business aviation, commercial aerospace and the military. We recognized early on if you relied on one sector and it didn’t perform well it made for trying times. So we’ve balanced out our portfolio and it carries us through difficult times in any one of the sectors. We invested heavily in higher end landing gear systems such as EMB 120 and Bombardier CRJ200, 700 and 900. Even in a difficult economy we get the business because they are typically time rather than cycle limited. Regardless of the economy the gear needs attention. We’ve been able increase staffing during a period when others have been forced to retrench.”