Correction appended
On a windy April morning, Bill Pulte, Eddie Mancera and Mark Englert piled into a black SUV and drove 45 minutes north from Northwestern to Midwestern Helicopter in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Outside the car, the clouds hung low as the three current and former Pi Kappa Alpha brothers* bounced down the highway. Mancera, a Cincinnati native, glanced out and grimaced — he needed more sunlight for his camera to take clear pictures. Pulte got on his iPhone and called one of his partners for an update on the weather. He’d be frantically dialing for most of the trip.
The Medill sophomore has wanted to fly since he was a kid. “It was always a dream of mine,” Pulte said. “But I needed to figure out how I could keep flying.”
Now he earns $10,000 a month doing it — all before he turns 21.
Pulte has not let his age limit his business ventures. In freshman year he founded an online business, called NUlist.org, that provided Northwestern students with a forum to buy and sell goods, and make announcements. The sale of NUlist.org helped get his pilot’s license, which cost $16,000 in flight time and classes.
Now he runs Great Lake Helicopters, which he founded last November with Dave Weinberg, a Weinberg junior. The company takes aerial photography in the North Shore for real-estate agencies, businesses such as country clubs, and private residences.
“Often I don’t even disclose my age,” Pulte said. “Even though I’m a college kid, the company certainly doesn’t look like it’s run out of a college dorm room — which it is.”
Though not commanding in stature, he has the calculated voice and mannerisms befitting a businessman. His mouth is sunken in, giving him a seasoned look. That’s the most striking thing about him –- attached to his cell phone and Blackberry, he is more a man in the financial district than one in college.
Once they finally arrived at the Wisconsin airfield, Pulte took Englert and Mancera by surprise: He wanted to do the flight despite the heavy cloud cover. “I didn’t think we should go up but it’s his money, his call,” said Englert, a sales representative and a Northwestern alumnus. They had expected him to be more careful because two weeks ago he’d gone up and took photos himself. The camera was set to the wrong shutter speed and the photos were unusable, ending in a loss of $1,200 for the helicopter rental, co-pilot and fuel. And Pulte himself has insisted that “as far as weather is concerned, we don’t go up if there’s the slightest amount of inclement weather.”
But along with a hired co-pilot, the brothers got into a four-seat, Robinson R44 Raven helicopter. The weather that day was windy, with readings up to 30 knots (34.6 mph) on the ground and 40 knots (46.1 mph) in the air. After roughly an hour and 15 minutes, the foursome came down, visibly shaken. The wind shook the helicopter and required navigation in sharp, jarring turns. “It’s never been that bad before,” Mancera said. Luckily, the clouds let up and the team took photos of homes in Kenilworth and the Indian Hill Golf Club. Pulte and Mancera were optimistic about the quality.
Pulte works hard to stay professional, but he said it’s tough “just trying to be a college kid at the same time. I don’t have a lot of time to do that.” As the president of Pi Kappa Alpha, or Pike, Pulte finds that balance easier because the majority of his employees are or were fraternity brothers. Mancera has photographed three of Pulte’s trips, while Englert was brought into the business through his friendship with Pulte. “If you keep your employees happy, everything else will go well,” Pulte said.
When he first began his business, he said, “people found out about what we were doing and thought I was loony.” Now, he’s the founder and CEO of a business with 14 part-time employees, mostly Northwestern students. They’ve flown more than 20 times, and Pulte seems to have had no doubt that it would be successful. “I recognized that there was a demand for aerial photography on the North Shore,” he said. It took about six months to become a certified pilot. Due to the high entry cost, Bill Coolbaugh of Midwestern Helicopter said there were “not a lot of people doing it.”
The future of Great Lakes Helicopters remains unclear. Neither Englert nor Mancera see themselves staying with the company after they graduate from Northwestern. In fact, Englert will leave early in the fall for a job at Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. However, both think Pulte will keep at it, either in aviation or business. “He’ll be flying wherever he is for sure,” Englert said.
Pulte can see it go either way. “What I want to be is the ultimate source of helicopter aerial photography for the North Shore,” he said. “If I can do that by the time I graduate, I’ll sell [the company].” He plans on taking that money and starting something new.
However, he has not ruled out expanding the business. Aerial-photography services in the U.S. are populated by mom-and-pop organizations, according to Pulte. If he were to continue after college, he’d want to expand to different cities and become the “McDonald’s of aerial photography.”
“I enjoy [this business], it’s a hobby of mine,” Pulte said. “But at a certain point you have to make money.
“The profit margin is what’s going to keep you happy and decide what’s worth your time,” he said. Lately, the profit margins of Great Lakes Helicopters have made him very happy.
*Correction — May 6, 2008: This story originally stated that Eddie Mancera is a member of Pi Kappa Alpha. He had been a member, but deactivated during Winter Quarter. Thanks to commenter Jeremy for the correction.