Matthew Brennan // 34
Vice President, Member Services Group // Corporate Eagle, Waterford Township // Employees: 57 // Revenue: $22M
Baker College
They weren’t quite caped crusader moments, but as Matthew Brennan was learning how to sell shares on corporate aircraft, he would head home for lunch, change out of his aircraft maintenance uniform, put on a suit, and head back to work. “I have a real passion for aircraft and anything that goes fast,” says Brennan, vice president of the Member Services Group at Corporate Eagle in Waterford Township.
The company provides membership-based aviation programs to corporate clients and individuals. When he was 14, Brennan started “scrubbing corners and edges of the hangar, pulling weeds, and doing all of those jobs no one else wanted to do,” he says of the firm’s facility at Oakland County International Airport.
He began operating aircraft-towing vehicles after he learned to drive, and began fueling and cleaning planes. “At 19, I got hit by the sales bug, so I started to learn how the management side worked. I got involved in marketing and slowly I learned enough to start up sales,” he says. “On the first day, I made 50 phone calls, and I thought everyone would call me back. But no one called back.” Soon after, he made his first sale, and today the company has more than 20 clients.
With 19 years at Corporate Eagle, Brennan has learned every facet of the business — implementing training programs, writing emergency plans for fuel spill prevention and cleanup, and overseeing storm water pollution prevention and containment. “Our clients and employees are the lifeblood of the company,” he says. “We’re only as good as the last aircraft that taxies off the ramp. We’re growing, and we want to keep growing.”
See the rest of the 2016 class of 30 in Their Thirties here.
