Eighty years in business is no small accomplishment for any company, but it is a particularly significant achievement in the aviation industry, which, as we all know, experiences its share of ups and downs.

Galvin Flying Ser­vices, an FBO at Boe­ing Field-King County International Airport in Seattle is one such company.

Here at NBAA, the company is inviting one and all to join in a cake cutting marking its 80th anniversary, tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the AirBP Booth (No. 7903).
Jim Galvin founded Galvin Flying Services in the middle of the Great Depression, on Oct. 31, 1930, in economic conditions that were a lot worse than they are today. He offered barn­storming, flying newspaper reporters and flight instruction. He also reached the rank of commander in the U.S. Coast Guard. Galvin died peacefully in 1991 at the age of 87.

The current president of the company is Peter Anderson, Galvin’s nephew, who joined the company in 1969 and was appointed president in 1980.
Today the company provides line service, aircraft management and sales, charter (as an Argus Gold Plus-rated service) and flight instruction (more than 17,000 pilots trained).

Galvin Flying Service re­ceived an overall rating of 7.72 (on a scale from 1 to 10) in AIN’s FBO Survey 2010 The Americas. This placed Galvin in the 50th percentile of the 142 FBOs in the Western Hemisphere that received the required number of ratings to be listed in AIN