A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

California-based Vessix, an aviation software developer, has partnered with Total Control Systems, a provider of electronic flow meters, on a new FBO fuel inventory reporting system, which is making its debut here at NBAA.
According to its designers, the new system will modernize and streamline the fuel invoice and inventory-monitoring processes. “The sheer amount of wasted time and energy [currently] involved is mind-blowingly expensive, not to mention an incredibly archaic process that is prone to costly mistakes,” said Vessix co-founder and COO Tom Perkins.
The system consists of the TCS 3000 electronic register/flow computer, a device fitted to each of a service provider’s fuel tankers, which will automatically calculate the fuel amount delivered and transmit it directly to an FBO’s licensed Vessix business management system. Once the data is received, the system will generate invoices and store the fuel inventory data for backend processes such as accounting, taxes and reporting. 
By using the system, service providers will no longer require handwritten fuel tickets, nor will they have to estimate how much fuel they have on hand. “Vessix clearly understands the pitfalls and opportunities that the FBO industry is facing,” said Dan Murray, Total Control Systems’ vice president. “TCS and Vessix are looking forward to eliminating hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor costs and accounting inaccuracies.”
Perkins told AIN that the company is currently working with a fuel provider to create a back-end interface at its home office. The system will take data feeds from all its trucks and prepare a report, so the provider can track what all its bases are doing instantaneously, as well as monitor inventory in the tanks.

Vessix and TCS Streamline Fuel Inventory Process

The system consists of an electronic register/flow computer, a device fitted to each of a service provider’s fuel tankers.

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