William Garvey

Former Editor-in-Chief, Business & Commercial Aviation

Charleston, South Carolina

Summary

Bill was Editor-in-Chief of Business & Commercial Aviation from 2000 to 2020. During his stewardship, the monthly magazine received scores of awards for editorial excellence.

He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the National Business Aviation Association; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Aerospace Media Awards; the Aviation Journalism Award from the National Air Transportation Association; and an Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award for Business Aviation.

Previously, Bill served as Managing Editor of Aviation Week Television. He was the top editor for both Flying and Professional Pilot magazines, as well as a member of the senior editorial staff at Reader's Digest. He also managed communications for FlightSafety International.

Bill has authored or co-authored three aviation books, was an essayist for National Public Radio, wrote aviation documentaries for The Discovery Channel and has written for numerous publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian Air & Space, Popular Mechanics and The Associated Press, among others.

An active aviator, Bill holds a Commercial Pilot license, along with multiengine, instrument, seaplane and glider ratings.

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Articles

William Garvey
Chairman, LOGIX Communications, Houston, Texas, and owner, Houston Executive Airport, Austin Executive Airport

By William Garvey [email protected] and Joseph Anselmo [email protected], Joseph Anselmo
NetJets, the original and by far the largest fractional aircraft operation, was founded by Richard Santulli in 1986 and acquired by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate in 1998 for $725 million. A decade later, the company operated some 800 business jets in the United States and Europe for thousands of share owners. However, once the global recession struck, new share sales slowed dramatically, existing owners began cashing in their shares and the company began hemorrhaging money — Buffett put its 2009 losses at a “staggering” $711 million.

William Garvey
Peter Diamandis, a publishing executive (and not the head of the X Prize Foundation), was explaining to me how the company had come into being. He had been working for CBS in Manhattan and Larry Tisch, the billionaire who then ran the place, was selling all kinds of things to reduce debt and improve the bottom line. Tisch had been considering offloading the company’s magazine division to an outside group, so Diamandis began devising a more attractive plan for taking over the division himself.
William Garvey