If you made the trip to Woodring Airport and visited hangar 33 – the home base of the Aircraft Structures International Corporation – you might have a few descriptive words come to mind regarding their facility, like “Industrious” or “Corporate”. But if you were to ask Mickey Stowers, the owner and founder of ASIC, along with his wife, Kay, their description would give you an entirely different perspective.

Family.

“We have worked really hard to make sure that everyone here feels like family,” Kay said. “We have guys from Enid that have been with us for fifteen or twenty years.”

ASIC is the world’s leader in repair and restoration for the Cessna 208 Caravan, providing top quality service to businesses and clients around the globe.

“Most of our advertising is just word of mouth.” Mickey informed us. “ I will be traveling to visit more of these insurance adjusters in foreign countries to try and bring in more work. But we are booked up for the next three years as it is. We need more people, more buildings. We are renting t-hangars from [Oklahoma] city right now just to put airplanes and parts in because we don’t have the storage space.”

Being in Enid, Oklahoma is partly the reason for their success. They are centrally located which equals out shipping times, and Oklahoma does not charge sales tax on aviation parts and equipment. Right now, they are undergoing an expansion process, adding on new hangars and workshops to their property. They also currently have two fuselage jigs in their facility and are in the process of building a third in order to maintain the turnover rate of production.

“When I (Kay) came into ASIC, there we about 10-12 people working here. The parts department consisted of a little tiny room full of boxes where you had to dig around for parts,” she said. “I knew I could make it grow in my aspects of organization and employee relationships, but I never imagined it would take off like it has.”

As of right now, they currently have about fifty-three to fifty-four employees, and just recently hired on another twelve. Mickey and Kay also work in conjunction with Autry Technology Center, offering training courses for students looking to begin a career.

“We have hired people out of Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Wichita before, but we like to hire Enid people because their families are here. They’re more grounded and we just have a better turn-over rate that way.”

Mickey and Kay have been married fifteen years, and Kay – an Enid native – has a passion to connect with the people in her community and provide better employment opportunities for them and their families.

“I think people work harder for us. They are loyal and will do anything for us because they know we will do anything for them. We’ve helped them with housing problems, personal problems, all kinds of things and I really think that just connects us. We aren’t up here in the office all the time looking down on them. We are right there in the shop with them.”