At Heli-Expo last year, MD Helicopters CEO Lynn Tilton revealed the details of an ambitious agenda for revitalizing the troubled company. It included plans for building helicopter fuselages in Mexico, bringing more component production in-house and making product-support improvements.

The company is now on the road to recovery, but it hasn’t been easy, Tilton admits, and the work is far from done.

Tilton is the founder of Patriarch Partners, LLC, a New York- and Charlotte, N.C.-based financial firm with a portfolio of more than $5 billion and 65 companies.
Patriarch acquired a majority interest in MD Helicopters in 2005, at a time when the company was on life support. It had defaulted on millions of dollars in payments to suppliers and fallen woefully behind on its delivery schedule.

Her blunt talk at Heli-Expo last year about the inadequacy of some aerospace suppliers and her critical take on the aerospace industry culture raised eyebrows, as did her bold plans for MD Helicopters.