When The Wall Street Journal published a recent, one-sided story about business aviation, NBAA quickly teamed with member company SEL in setting the record straight in a letter sent to the news organization’s editor.
The letter’s author, Dr. Edmund O. Schweitzer III, brought first-hand experience to his thoughtful response to the October 8 Journal story, headlined, “Bosses Are Cutting Costs, Just Not the Private Jet.”
Schweitzer founded and built a successful employee-owned company that protects critical infrastructure around the world. Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) is based in Pullman, WA – an ideal location for many reasons, including that its proximity to two state universities offers SEL a valuable workforce pipeline.
At the same time, the town has very limited airline service, making a business airplane essential to SEL’s ability to transport key employees, meet customers and grow the business. SEL purchased its first airplane, A Cessna Citation Bravo, in 1999. Read more in NBAA’s profile on SEL.
In his letter to the Journal (full text below), Dr. Schweitzer noted that the company’s airplanes work for all employees.
“The majority of our trip purposes are for our employee owners to get from Pullman to the rest of the world quickly and efficiently,” he wrote. “We have flown more than 8,000 different employees on our aircraft in the last 26 years.”
Dr. Schweitzer added that SEL would not be where it is today without business aviation. Specifically it would not have built its first laboratory in Pullman, its five U.S. manufacturing plants, or its international facilities in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.
SEL’s experience with business aviation is not unique. Companies of all sizes use business aviation to reach customers in small cities and rural areas outside of those served by commercial airlines.
Business aviation gives organizations of all sizes an office in the sky. SEL and many other companies use business aviation to meet customers and travel to far-flung offices, send employees to conferences, transport products and services, and provide emergency flights to those in need. These are among just some of the reasons independent studies have shown for years that companies utilizing business aircraft outperform comparable companies that don’t.
“Countless businesses realize aviation is a tool to be used wisely, to respect employees’ time and lives, to best serve our customers, and to be more accessible, responsive and engaging,” Dr. Schweitzer told the Journal. “They’re powerful tools, of tremendous value to SEL and all of us employee-owners.”
NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen thanked Dr. Schweitzer for his letter to the Journal highlighting the real story of business aviation. “NBAA and the business aviation community are fortunate to have an exemplary advocate in Dr. Schweitzer, and we thank him for championing business aviation and explaining its value to America’s citizens, companies and communities,” Bolen said.
Below is the full letter submitted by Dr. Schweitzer to the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal
Letters Editor
October 10, 2025
Dear Editor:
Your October 8 story, “Bosses Are Cutting Costs, Just Not the Private Jet,” used a simplistic and woefully incomplete picture to malign companies of all sizes, all across the U.S., that rely on business aviation.
I founded a company that invents and builds products that protect, automate and control critical infrastructure in over 160 countries. We are employee-owned, and invent, design, manufacture, sell, support, teach and learn. We believe in being close to our customers.
We are based in Pullman, Washington, where I taught electrical engineering many years ago. We’re close to Washington State University and the University of Idaho – two solid land-grant universities – and we engage broadly with them. It’s a 90-minute drive to Spokane, or a commuter flight to Seattle, to go anywhere by the airlines.
In 2000, we purchased our first airplane after benefiting from charter air services. It reduced a three-day trip to one day, with seats often full, to ten times as many destinations as the airlines. We own three business aircraft today.
Over 8,000 different employees have used these aircraft to visit customers and suppliers, respond to problems and opportunities, recruit new employees and collaborate globally. And we use the airlines about as much as our own aircraft.
Countless businesses realize aviation is a tool to be used wisely, to respect employees’ time and lives, to best serve our customers, and to be more accessible, responsive and engaging.
Business aviation benefits our communities, too. We have helped many individuals and families in need at difficult times in their lives.
Airplanes are expensive, yes. And they’re powerful tools, of tremendous value to SEL and all of us employee-owners.
May we suggest that future Wall Street Journal stories tell a much more complete story.
Sincerely,
Edmund O. Schweitzer III, Ph.D.
Founder
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories
Pullman, Wash.
