Rodney Wysong, who served as vice president of Wysong Enterprises, died April 17 following a three-year battle with cancer. He was 35. Wysong had a lifelong passion for aviation, spending much time as a child with his father, Steve Wysong, in avionics shops and hangars. After joining his father’s firm in 1998 at the age of 17, he helped expand Wysong Enterprises from a small Blountville, Tenn. avionics shop specializing in electronic newsgathering helicopters into a maintenance, repair and overhaul shop with international reach. He recently was named one of the 40 most influential people under 40 in the Tri Cities region of Tennessee and Virginia.

“Rodney was an amazing young man that had a ceaseless passion for his family and his business,” said Dallas Avionics vice president of sales Scott Davis, the son of the late Dallas Avionics founder Johnny Davis. “Rodney and I shared in common growing up in the aviation business around our dads. No matter how large the industry seems at times, this industry is still driven by small businesses and we are all family. The loss of Rodney is not only a loss to the Wysong family, but also to the entire industry.”