Page 12 - August 2023

offices, inventory, manufacturing, training and delivery. Most of the company’s facilities were previously used to manufacture Bellanca Champion, Citabria, Scout and Decathlon aircraft.
“Explicitly, since 1986 CustomFIRE’s sales outreach and resulting growth is linked to its use of corporate aircraft,” Kirvida said. “At the start, our factory- direct sales of fire apparatus required that the same person(s) engineering the fire trucks during the day, needed to travel and work jointly with the purchasing committees, wherever their location, and usually during the evenings. In my own situation, aircraft have allowed me as owner to make sales visits to and develop personal relationships with fire chiefs throughout the Midwest and East Coast regions. This was a distinct advantage that the competition could not duplicate.”
Even with the convenience of emails, Zoom meetings and Dropbox services to exchange information, Kirvida said there are situations when the aircraft are vital to operations: from same-day emergency parts deliveries to sudden-notice repositioning of sales and service representatives and factory visits to their many component vendors. Most recently, he said, CustomFIRE has been engaged in the marketing and manufacturing of industrial fire apparatus, requiring frequent trips to the refineries and terminals of Texas and Louisiana.
The aircraft also are used for personal travel and humanitarian missions.
“My entire family, all 17 of us, have enjoyed the rewards of personal air travel for more than 30 years now,” Kirvida said. “Both of my sons are active pilots, and on many occasions, we have mobilized two or more aircraft in order to have sufficient passenger seats.”
Over the years, there have been many instances where the aircraft were used for charitable purposes, and Kirvida said among the most rewarding were the many years of flying the WWII 8th Airforce Pilots and Bombardiers on a day trip, with destinations ranging from Charles Lindbergh’s home and museum in Little Falls, Minnesota, to the EAA Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and beyond.
In 2020, Kirvida earned the Federal Aviation Administration’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, awarded to those with 50 or more years of piloting experience. He credits three of his closest pilot friends for writing nominations on his behalf.
“This award is pinnacle of my accomplishments, a recognition I wish could have been shared with the person who inspired my passion of aviation – my father Mitch Kirvida,” he said. KA
10 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
AUGUST 2023