By Kathleen Vereen Dayton, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Dec. 28--It isn't every day that a man born on a Horry County tobacco farm just after the Great Depression manages to finish college, start his own companies and become a millionaire.
Not to mention that, at age 66, he successfully launches an airline.
Bob Brooks of Myrtle Beach has done all of that and more, and was recently voted The Sun News Businessman of the Year for 2003.
In the past year alone, Brooks created the first Myrtle Beach-based airline, Hooters Air, and in less than a year has grown the airline to a fleet of four Boeing jets serving six destinations from Newark, N.J., to the Bahamas.
The airline, which focuses on leisure travelers, gave Myrtle Beach International Airport a boost after taking a hit from a depressed economy and a downturn in the travel industry. The airline is squarely aimed at golfers and other tourists seeking a warm-weather climate, a much-needed shot in the arm that should help strengthen the Grand Strand's tourism-based economy, area leaders said.
Brooks' latest venture is a part-interest in two vacation charter companies, Vacation Express of Atlanta and Suntrips of San Jose, Calif.
Brooks is negotiating with those companies and hopes eventually to put the Hooters Air logo on more planes.
'We have no firm plans, but it would not surprise me if we had more connections because of the joint venture,' Brooks said. 'We could get a lot bigger a lot sooner.'
The vacation charters serve markets such as Cancun and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Hawaii; the Dominican Republic; as well as Denver and San Francisco.
Mark Peterson, president of Hooters Air, said people should expect to see Hooters' continued expansion into leisure destinations.
'I'd say look at what we've done so far, and we'll be doing more of the same,' Peterson said.
Brooks started Hooters Air when he bought Pace Airlines of Winston-Salem, N.C., on Christmas Eve 2002. Pace, a charter airline that grew from the former Piedmont Airlines, was a well-established company serving tour groups and sports teams.
Hooters Air started by adding two Boeing 737s to Pace's fleet, and in March launched its first flight to Atlanta from Myrtle Beach International Airport. Ten months later, the airline has two more Boeing jets and has added flights to Newark; Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; Fort Myers, Fla.; and Nassau, Bahamas.
The Nassau flights, which debuted Dec. 16, are the only nonstop international flights from an S.C. airport.
'We're a hub now,' said Jean Anne Brakefield, vice president of the convention bureau division of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. 'For people who have never heard of Myrtle Beach, it may be their final destination next and not just a place to change planes. It's all about exposure.'
Brakefield called Brooks a top entrepreneur from Horry County.
Born in 1937 in the Sweet Home community near Loris, Brooks grew up plowing corn fields and stoking the fire at Sweet Home Elementary School before the other children arrived. He attended Clemson University on a scholarship, got a degree in dairy science and built his fortune when he established his own food company, now known as Naturally Fresh Foods, based in Atlanta.
The business today reaps about $100 million in annual sales, but Brooks is perhaps better known as the self-proclaimed 'World Wide Wing Commander' of the Hooters restaurant chain, a company he took over in the mid-1990s.
The sexy theme of the 300-plus restaurant chain, known for chicken wings and attractive waitresses dressed in snug orange shorts, is not one that appealed to everyone but one Brooks decided he would translate into a unique airline. Some criticized Hooters for what they called the exploitation of women and wondered if it was the right image for the area.
Two Hooters girls accompany flight attendants on every Hooters flight and the airline's catch phrase soon surfaced: 'We're easy to buy and fun to fly.'
The airline became the darling of late-night talk shows when its bright orange planes emerged, selling a sprinkle of sex along with leather seats, extra leg room, and tickets with no advance purchase necessary.
Jokes-a-plenty accompanied the fledgling Hooters Air, but Peterson said there's no such thing as a bad Hooters joke.
'You add some consistency and you deliver a good product, and it becomes more real,' Peterson said.
'With a great brand name like Hooters, that offers us some advantages. We've gotten a lot of press that somebody else starting out would not have gotten.'
Peterson was formerly vice president of operations for Vanguard Airlines, an operation Brooks had tried to buy when it filed for bankruptcy. When Vanguard declined his offers, Brooks turned to Pace.
'My experience with Mr. Brooks is, he pretty much does what he says he's going to do,' Peterson said. 'People should pay attention when he says he's going to do something.'
With no previous experience in the airlines, Brooks also jumped into an ailing industry during a difficult economic climate.
'I haven't found it any different from anything else I've tried,' Brooks said. 'It's not the size of the business that makes it successful; it's the people you've got.'
Peterson said people in Myrtle Beach are lucky to have Brooks.
'He's a self-made man who started right here, and he's certainly at a stage in his life where he could sit back and play golf and look out at the ocean, but that's just not him,' Peterson said. 'He's always been a visionary in terms of what he wanted to do. He took a little restaurant and a concept, and it's pushing a billion dollars in sales a year. That's pretty good for a gentleman from Loris.'
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(c) 2003, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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