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[[image]]'You have to do it yourself...' (from Florida friend)
A $15,000 salary cut was only one of the signals to Bob White that it was time for a career change. It might have been enough all by itself, but there were others. A change of command at National Cash Register Co. had upended the customary way of doing things. For no good reason, he thought.
          White had enjoyed 21 years with the company in the top 10 percent of every category in which standards of performance are judged--and that included a salary in the 50-grand range. He was immensely happy, a division head based in Orlando.
         But the company had been caught short in the industry's shift from electromechanical to electronic accounting and bookkeeping systems, and its profits were slipping. A new president was hired and under a reorganization the division system--with its bonus incentives--was abolished.
          "I was not about to spend another 18 years of my life under a system I despised," says White. "I figured if I was going to suffer, I may as well suffer doing something I like." So, at the age of 48, he took early retirement. "I had the attitude that I was willing to change and do something different. And I had enough money to get started."
           What he started was an improbable venture for a man his age and experience to throw his life's capital into. White, a pilot and aviation buff since his mid-20s, decided to make his hobby a business. He formed vintage airplanes for profit.
          He sold his Orlando home and bought a 50-acre crop duster airstrip some 30 miles north in Zellwood. Then he went on a search for the rusted bones of airplanes, preferrably the venerable Waco. And he found them--in Illinois, Arkansas,Mississippi,Texas,Tennessee, South Carolina. In barns and behind barns, in the cobwebby rafters of rural airports. In bits and pieces,mostly. ([?] distributings 1926)
          Finding them was almost the easy part. White was a white-collar executive,not a hammer-and-screwdriver man. When anything around the house needed fixing,his wife knew to call the repairman in. She was not wild about his plans to restore and fly his ancient airplanes.
          White paid experienced restorers to do his first two Wacos while he looked over their shoulders.He learned woodworking and welding and how to replace the fabric of wings. Then he declared himself in business.
"I've had my sabbatical. I've had my learning curve experience," White says."Now I'm ready to bust loose and kick'em out of the hangar."On his showroom floor in the tin hangar that faces a 3,300-foot grass landing strip are some antiques out of aviation history. 
        There is a 1928 Waco biplane that was built for Embry Riddle, a pioneer in flight training in Florida, another Waco of the same year that was used for barnstorming and a rare 1933 four-place cabin Waco with roll-down windows. Each will bring more than $25,000 when sold.
        White's inventory stands at 16 planes. It looks like no more than a collection of pipe frames that collapsed and has been collecting dust since. The miracle is the finished product--gleaming, letter-perfect restorations. His first sold easily.
        White considers that he is starting all over again in the business world, and that he is coming at it with the same enthusiasm that made him successful at NCR."I have a whole new set of problems to face now. I need to sell, trade, and build. This enterprise has to carry itself financially."
        He says it took him a while to get used to the idea that there was no giant corporation backing Straight Wings. "You have to do it yourself with the help of your wife. And that's tough."But there is deep satisfaction in "doing what I want to do without outside interference," he adds.
        "Everything I've done has been done with some optimism," says White."I'd rather run a coin laundry than go back."

[Lauded ok Elwira Mt. Top-Mrs "WACO"(Hattie)1930-1931-FAI Soaring Lie 37-lef U.S.A. for WOMEN-?]

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