After 25 years, Cotreau still high on skydiving

Maybe where's he's happiest, above the fray. (Courtesy photo)

Skydive New England owner Fred Cotreau has called Lebanon home for some 10 years, and ever since he's been here he's made a living making people comfortable jumping out of a perfectly good working aircraft.

As one of Lebanon most recognizable business owners, we thought it would be interesting to sit down and talk to him about skydiving and what it takes to be a success in such an unusual enterprise.

Cotreau is always on the go, whether it's tending to customers, managing staff or working in his garage, but we managed to corral him for an interview this week in his comfortable, spacious second-floor corner office at Skydive New England off Upper Guinea Road.

In the first of an occasional series, The Lebanon Voice sits down with people from the community we'd like to know more about.

TLV: How did you ever end up owning a skydive place?

Fred: I was what's called a licensed skydiver as a hobby. There was quite a few of us that were based out of Pepperell, Massachusetts, and we found George Ireland's place up here, and we came to try it and liked it so much many of us made this our drop zone that we came to on a weekly basis. At the time I owned a commercial construction company in the suburbs of Boston and the opportunity in approximately 2005 came up to purchase into the business here and I decided to make a change. I was coming up to Lebanon every weekend. I liked the people. I liked the area, so over the course of a year I sold the construction company and went into aviation and here I am.

TLV: So you learned the business from a sports angle?

Fred: I was a customer.

TLV: Then you learned everything else from the inside?

Fred: Yes

TLV: Where are you from?

Fred: I was born and raised in Saugus.

TLV: Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood growing up in Saugus and about your personal life now.

Fred: My childhood was surrounded by anything with wheels and a motor. My father gave me a minibike at 5. My father didn't give me a baseball glove. It wasn't a team sport household. I've been welding since I was a little child, it all revolved around building things. Both sides of the family were very mechanical and construction oriented and that's the way I was basically brought up.

TLV: For not playing sports, you look pretty fit. How do you do that?

Fred: After high school I did some scuba diving and I went to the gym with the boys, that kind of stuff. I currently take care of myself. At 49 years old I eat a proper died and work out several times a week.

TLV: What's the secret to running Skydive New England?

Fred Cotreau in front of one of his jump aircraft. (Lebanon Voice/Harrison Thorp photo)

Fred: Safety. Safety is at the forefront of everything. Safety and customer service. I realize that people come here, and they literally trust their lives to us by choosing my facility. We take that to heart, so we make sure we cover all aspects of safety one hundred and 10 percent, but also the staff that is hired need to be good people, friendly people, and soothing to the customer so to speak. You don't want to give someone a bad experience .when they're experiencing their first time with something as special as this. But they literally risk their lives when they choose to come here and they're putting their lives in my hands.

TLV: What's the secret to making them feel comfortable?

Fred: You just want them relaxed. You want your staff members to be relaxed, friendly. You don't want the usual aggravation that comes with running a business to show in front of the customers.

TLV: Oh, yeah, I know. I can imagine.

Fred: (laughs) We're all here to have a good time. You don't want someone (staff member) screaming at the pilot when they're flying the airplane.

TLV: Your ads point out "jump out, pig out, camp out" here at Skydive New England. It sounds like people have a good time here.

Fred: Yeah, we're the only drop zone in New England that offers tenting on site. Because we're one of the few drop zones that own the property, own the runway. So we kind of cater to our customer's needs. So yeah, we offer some nightlife. So what that does is introduces somebody that has only come up once, they see the camaraderie that comes along with the sport after the jumping day ends. That's what we try to show them, you get some retainage that way. It may not be necessarily to come back for another tandem, but we're also in the business to grow and teach skydiving, to keep them skydiving, so with the aspects of nightlife and some bonfires and socialization, it really helps out retaining customers. They repeat, then they become regular customers.

TLV: Sort of turning it all into an experience.

Fred: Exactly. You find that when you go to other drop zones around the country you'll find the camaraderie is the same. It's such a small sport, the camaraderie is pretty tight.

TLV: Tell us a little bit about your own skydiving history, when you started, how often do you do it now? How proficient are you?

Fred: I've been skydiving since the early '90s, my 25^th year. And like anything else when you get into something, you think you're going to end up skydiving all the time. I have a little over 2,000 skydives. As I run the business now I don't skydive more than a few dozen times a year. But some of these guys will jump over 100 times during a 30-week season.

TLV: Just not enough time to do all you want to do?

Fred: Right I often compare this to farming. You got to make hay when the sun shines. The other saying is you make a lot of hay for a little bit of pay. It really comes down to a lifestyle, not just a job. I live on site and you're surrounded by it almost 24 hours a day, but it's for the love of it. It's so much fun. It's rewarding to have people come up for an experience and it's basically entertainment, but it's very rewarding when they're happy. We do about 27,000 skydives in a 30-week season, and nearly 8,500 of those are first-time jumpers and we have an exceptional track record of having happy customers. So you can imagine the amount of people who leave here happy. It's very rewarding.

TLV: Can you describe the most exciting or unusual jump that you ever made?

Fred: It would either be a hot air balloon jump from 8,500 feet or at one of the larger venues years ago you could jump out of a 727 jet.

TLV: Seriously?

Fred: It was fitted for cargo so it had a great big side door and there were no seats. So we sat on the floor. You need to wear a seat belt, so they had 130 seat belts fastened to the floor. And we exited out a small door in the tail of the aircraft at 200 miles per hour. It was pretty interesting.

TLV: When you're in one of your planes how much do they slow it down to.

Fred: Approximately 80 miles per hour.

TLV: You've already done it a little, but can you run through some of the logistics, the numbers, about Skydive New England. For instance, how many employees do you have?

Fred: We are a seasonal business, so it starts out slower in the spring but at peak season we have 50 employees.

TLV: And how many people jump in a day?

Fred: Typically our weekends are our busiest; we'll do 600 skydives on a busy Saturday.

TLV: How much fuel do you go through in a day?

Fred: Fuel is somewhat variable given the weather conditions and how many passengers there are. In general we burn about 20 gallons of fuel in an aircraft per load. We drop till sunset so in the summer when we have sunlight till almost 9 we'll do 30 lifts.

TLV: Now did I see somewhere where you do night jumps during a full moon?

Fred: On full moons as part of our U.S. Parachute Association requirements, you're required to make two night jumps for one of your licenses. So on full moons which provide lighting we file with the FAA and give them a notice that we're doing night jumps. It has an extra thrill and excitement.

TLV: You've done that?

Fred: It's very exciting. It's like jumping into the abyss.

TLV: If you had to describe to a layman like me what it's like to jump out of a plane how would you describe that?

Fred: There's a couple of different parts to that. People feel like if they're afraid of heights they're going to be afraid of skydiving. Like being in a ladder you can kind of relate to height. But being in an aircraft - like most people that fly commercially don't feel that they're afraid of heights - so you don't feel afraid of heights in a skydive aircraft. The fear of heights goes away. And then people think it's going to be like a roller-coaster. But a roller-coaster when you peak, you start down a large hill from a dead stop and you feel the acceleration. But when you exit the aircraft you're already at a speed of 80 miles per hour and you introduce yourself into the wind, so there's nothing coming up into your throat. It's very relatable to something like riding on a motorcycle. It's exactly what it's like. You just feel the wind on your body, just like being on a motorcycle.

TLV: Changing subjects to a serious note, I know you've talked to town selectmen about the mass gathering ordinance, but we haven't heard much about how you feel. What's your feeling about that?

My take on the mass gathering ordinance is and it seems to have been brushed over: The state-issued mass gathering ordinance states in the beginning if you do something outside your normal realm of business, that seems to have gotten brushed over. I can understand the town's position regarding cost and overtime. It's not cheap. I wouldn't want to run a town. You can't keep everybody happy and things continue to cost more money. But I'm set up to handle that amount of people. I don't want my customers coming here and finding overflowing toilets. That would be foolish.

TLV: And you're always going to have enough water and security.

Fred: I have never reached the 500 person threshold, but I've paid for the permit. The selectmen wanted me to get it. This year I applied for it, but they said you don't meet the criteria. You don't need it

TLV: What do you do the rest of the year when you're not running Skydive?

Fred: I lease the aircraft to other jump centers in the southern states, so I have some management duties there. Plus I recently started sailing. So I go someplace warm like Florida and I take sailing lessons.

TLV: Do you have a specific Florida destination?

Fred: No, but you know it's a seasonal business and we close in early November, but there's administrative duties and repairs around the property that need to be done before the ground freezes, so we work till New Year's. Then I open in mid-April, so early March we have people back here, so winters off aren't all that long.