VOLUME 23 NUMBER 15 ■ GSABUSINESS.COM
Part of the
Charter flight companies pitch convenience and privacy as a selling point to conduct business travel through smaller airports. (Photo/Provided)
Rapid response
Clemson researchers are on the trail of a faster COVID-19 test. Page 9
T
Architects weigh in on statues
A different view on value of monuments. Page 13
INSIDE
Leading Off .......................... 2 SC Biz News Briefs ................ 3 C-Suite ................................ 4 In Focus: Banking and Finance ............................. 17 LIST: Accounting Firms....... 18 At Work ..............................22 Viewpoint ...........................23
rnorton@scbiznews.com
he shutdown brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic started with a flurry of activity for general aviation airports as people turned away from commercial flights. Charter flight companies that operate out of general aviation airports such as the Greenville Downtown Airport saw a sudden spike as people tried to find another way home. “If you go back to the beginning when it was first announced about the pandemic, things kind of locked down and you saw charter spike for about two weeks with people trying to get back to other states and other countries,” said Doug Goldstrom, president of sales and marketing for Special Services Corp., based at the Greenville Downtown Airport. “We did a lot of international flying during that time to get people out, and to get some back, and then the charter business stopped. And there was nobody flying because most of charter business is business related.” That’s when April arrived, a bleak month for aviation generally, and aviation airports mirrored the decline suffered by
Attorneys from Ogletree Deakins follow developments. Page 10
Financial planners have advice for assessing risk in trying times. Page 20
Smaller airports see faster ascent By Ross Norton
Managing in a pandemic
Tough times, careful plans
AUGUST 10 - AUGUST 23, 2020 ■ $2.25
network
See AVIATION, Page 1
South Carolina strikes chord with niche instrument industry By Molly Hulsey
mhulsey@scbiznews.com
Tom O’Hanlan, Booker Labs, Liberty
Spotlighted by Pink Floyd to the Beatles to Eric Clapton, some might call the Leslie speaker the unassuming backbone of classic rock and roll. Tom Booker O’Hanlan called the spinning speaker a hobby horse — until the Sealevel Systems CEO became one of few people in the world to refurbish the vintage speakers commercially from his Liberty-based BookerLab.
“It’s a fun sport, if you will,” O’Hanlan said about collecting the now 13 Leslie speakers that jumpstarted his work at BookerLab in 2018. “And I don’t even play keyboards. I’m just enamored with the technology.” In the late 1930s, Don Leslie invented the titular speaker, a cabinet with a revolving hornlike amplifier, to marry the doppler effect to the Hammond organ. Over the decades, musicians like John Lennon experimented with the speaker to torque their voice — as in the Beatles’ otherworldly cut “Tomorrow Never See INSTRUMENTS, Page 6
Tom O’Hanlan in BookerLab, which started with his fascination with speakers. (Photo/Molly Hulsey)
In Focus
Commerce Department Audit
Examination shows lack of transparency in business recruiting Page 17