Mooney Eliminates Another VP
There’s been another change at the top at Mooney Aerospace Group Ltd. (MASG) but CEO Nelson Happy said he believes there is stability ahead for the reorganized company. Jack Jansen, the senior vice president of operations at MASG’s Mooney Airplane Company Inc., in Kerrville, Texas, was let go in December. Happy said the decision was an economic one. “We had to eliminate the position. There were too many salaries for such a small company,” Happy told AVweb. Jansen joined MASG last March after similar stints at Piper and Mooney. AVweb contacted Jansen’s home four times but he did not return our phone calls.
There's been another change at the top at Mooney Aerospace Group Ltd. (MASG) but CEO Nelson Happy said he believes there is stability ahead for the reorganized company. Jack Jansen, the senior vice president of operations at MASG's Mooney Airplane Company Inc., in Kerrville, Texas, was let go in December. Happy said the decision was an economic one. "We had to eliminate the position. There were too many salaries for such a small company," Happy told AVweb. Jansen joined MASG last March after similar stints at Piper and Mooney. AVweb contacted Jansen's home four times but he did not return our phone calls. Senior production managers will take over Jansen's duties and Happy said he's confident they'll be able to handle the extra load. Happy said he believes Jansen's was the last in a series of executive departures in the past four months. "Now things seem to be fairly stable," he said.
...Production To Resume
While job security at the upper echelons of the company has been tenuous, there's been a rejuvenation of sorts on the plant floor, bolstered by strong fourth-quarter sales and the imminent resumption of assembly-line production. Happy said he's hired nine people in recent weeks and is well on the way to rehiring all the former employees laid off in recent years. There are now 160 employees. In the last half of 2002, the assembly line was shut down as staff finished 21 airplanes that were in varying stages of completion before the company closed. "They have sort of been hand-built," he said. All but one of those airplanes has been sold, including 16 in the last three months of the year. Happy said all future aircraft will be custom-built at the rate of six a month. He said there are enough orders to keep the line moving for three months.