By Howard Fine

Monday, February 7, 2011

Photo by Ringo Chiu
Chief Executive Joe Czyzyk outside his office at air cargo hangler Air Mercury’s Playa Vista headquarters.

Since his childhood when he played with balsa wood model airplanes, Joe Czyzyk has been interested in anything related to aviation. These days, as chief executive of Playa Vista-based Mercury Air Group, he heads the largest air cargo handler at Los Angeles International Airport, and has air cargo and airplane fueling operations spanning the globe. In his travels, Czyzyk (pronounced “Chizik”) has visited more than 100 countries on six continents. At home, he’s become increasingly involved in civic affairs. He served on the Los Angeles Taxicab Commission for 10 years and, this week, he formally will take over as chairman of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Born in a small village outside Warsaw, Czyzyk, 63, first arrived in Los Angeles with his family nearly 50 years ago. He got his start in the aviation industry at United Air Lines, then moved on to build up Israeli airline El Al’s presence in Los Angeles and New York. He joined Mercury Air in 1984 and became chief executive in 1999. Czyzyk sat down at his office in Playa Vista with the Business Journal to discuss his love of aviation, his civic involvement and his favorite pastime of fly-fishing.

Question: How did you first get interested in airplanes and air travel?

Answer: I have always been fascinated by airplanes. When I was a child, I used to have balsa wood airplanes and I loved getting them as gifts. I just loved planes. To this day, I marvel at how a plane can lift 1.5 million pounds off the ground, how a machine can take people from one continent and deposit them a few hours later on another continent.

Your parents were Jews in Eastern Europe during World War II. How did they survive?

My parents escaped Poland just as World War II began. My father saw what was coming. They spent the war years on the run through the Soviet Union, just ahead of the German army. They went from Archangel, a city on the Arctic Ocean in the northwest Soviet Union, to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. After the war, my parents returned to Poland and settled in a little village just outside Warsaw where I was born.

How did your family end up in Montreal?

My father tried to return to the fur business he had before the war, but he saw the writing on the wall when the Russians arrived. Again, my family got out just in time, before the borders were closed in the late 1940s. We had relatives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so that’s where we went. Eventually, we settled in Montreal.

How long were you there?

Well into my high school years. But my parents never really felt at home in Canada; they wanted to come to the United States. So in 1963, we drove from Montreal to Los Angeles. I fell in love with Los Angeles.

What did your father do once the family arrived in L.A.?

My father’s first job here was as a taxi driver. He tried a few other jobs for a while and then he bought up some nursing homes. In five years, he had established a very comfortable lifestyle – that’s truly living the American dream.

Once you were here in the United States, did you ever want to change your last name to something easier to pronounce and spell?

Sure, my name is difficult for Americans. Unless you’re from Eastern Europe, where the “y” functions as a vowel. But I never wanted to change my name. In fact, I learned something interesting about that name: Before World War II, it was the name of the chief rabbi in Warsaw and also the archbishop of Warsaw. Quite an impressive family name if you ask me.

You didn’t fly until you were living in Los Angeles.

I was 19 when I took my first flight up to San Francisco from L.A. It was on PSA, one of those airlines that went out of business a long time ago. In those days, you could walk right up to the counter, pay the air fare and walk on to the plane – no security. And with the pretty stewardesses, it was like nirvana for me.

Then you served in Vietnam.

I was in the Navy Seabees and did two tours of duty in Vietnam. I was injured twice: The first time I injured my hand at a shooting range here in the States; my hand got caught in the trigger mechanism. The second injury was a shrapnel wound I received while building an airstrip in Vietnam. That was a really scary experience. The bullets were really flying – I can still hear them. They sounded like bumblebees.

You didn’t start your career in the airline industry. Why not?

I graduated with an engineering degree. I never really had a passion for engineering like I did for aviation. When I graduated in 1971, it was not the best time to be an engineer. There were layoffs at all the big defense companies and the country was in a minirecession. I finally took a job at Crocker Citizen Bank.

Then what happened?

My big break came in talking with one of the bank’s customers, a regional manager for United Air Lines. He told me that United had an opening in its marketing department. Well that decision took all of five seconds: I went for the job and got it.

But you soon moved over to Israel’s El Al Airlines.

While at United, I met the passenger sales manager for El Al. I had an attachment for Israel as a lot of young Jews did at that time. It was just after the 1967 Six Day War. I had traveled to Israel and loved it. So I took the job. I built up El Al’s presence in Los Angeles and then I moved to New York for five years and built up the airline’s presence there. Then I became cargo manager. That’s where I got incredible exposure to international air travel and trade.

Word is that your office mates have a game: “Pick any city in the world, and Joe has either been to that city or within 50 miles of it.”

Yes, that really started at El Al. I found that every couple of years, I was adding more pages to my passport – that’s how much travel I was doing. I’ve now been to more than 100 countries. I’ve been to every continent except Antarctica – and I’d like to go there, too, someday. I haven’t been to all these places on holiday or vacation – it’s been on business or to develop business.

With all that traveling, you must have had your share of unusual experiences. What sticks out most in your mind?

Well, one fascinating experience was my time in the Khyber Pass (between Afghanistan and Pakistan) back in 1974. I was in Pakistan at a time when very few tourists were there. We ventured up to mountains around Peshawar, right on the northwest frontier. The only way to get down from there is through this place called Torkham and then through the Khyber Pass. That was an exceptional experience: You could buy anything you wanted in Torkham, including human slaves. I remember thinking to myself that here I was in 1974 – not 1774, but 1974, mind you – and people were buying human slaves right out in the open.

Any other remarkable experiences?

Yes. I was in La Paz, (Bolivia), back in the late 1980s – I think it was La Paz – when we ran into a mob that was approaching the U.S. Embassy. We were in a vehicle just outside the embassy; we dashed into the embassy grounds just before the mob got there. We ended up being stuck in the embassy for two days while the mob circled yelling anti-American slogans. I didn’t feel that my life was threatened, just that we didn’t know how long we would be there.

You’ve actually flown airplanes as a pilot. Did you enjoy it? Why did you stop?

I used to love piloting planes. Sometimes I would fly as often as once a week. It was such an exhilarating feeling. But I had a couple of close calls and decided it was time to close the logbook on flying.

Really? What happened?

On one flight 25 years ago, the landing gear had problems deploying and the plane very nearly landed on its belly. That’s when I decided to call it quits on piloting. To this day, whenever I’m in a plane that’s descending, I don’t feel a full sense of relief until I hear the landing gear lock into place.

What prompted you to leave El Al Airlines?

I was recruited to join Mercury Air. I was in New York at the time and here was Mercury Air offering me a chance to come back to Los Angeles, which is where I really wanted to be. Mercury wanted to start an air cargo division and they wanted me to run it.

What was the biggest change for you in moving to Mercury Air?

The company is much more entrepreneurial, which I found very refreshing after the top-down corporate structure of El Al.

Mercury went private in 2006. How has that move changed the company?

As a publicly traded company, Mercury had to constantly be concerned about quarterly shareholder return and public perception. Also, in our business, so many publicly traded companies have been bought and sold. Now that we’ve taken the company private, there’s an opportunity to create a truly great company over the long term. We have no long-term debt, which is a big help.

How did you first get involved in civic affairs?

For that, I really have to thank former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. He was always looking for ways that local executives could contribute and he asked me to serve on the transportation commission. I accepted.

But then you went over to the taxicab commission.

As soon as I joined the Transportation Commission, it was immediately clear that the taxicab franchise issue was so overwhelming that a new commission needed to be formed. So I and several other members of the Transportation Commission were selected for this new commission. For the next 10 years, I served on the Taxicab Commission, much of that time as president. During that period, the taxicab industry improved vastly.

As incoming chairman of the chamber board, what are your main goals?

Jobs are the one big key issue. We have to lobby for the creation of new jobs and for policies that foster the creation of jobs. Another key goal is improving the city’s infrastructure. When I first came to Los Angeles nearly 50 years ago, the city had the best street system in the world. It was one of the things I really enjoyed about Los Angeles and a major reason why Los Angeles was such a fabulous place to live. Los Angeles no longer has the infrastructure I remember. Besides making Los Angeles a more desirable place to be again, improving the infrastructure also creates jobs. Finally, there’s education. I see the quality of people coming out of our schools and, quite frankly, it’s not something I’m proud of. We’re not doing a good enough job here.

You list one of your hobbies as fly-fishing. How did you get interested in that?

A friend of mine from Canada introduced me to fly-fishing in Quebec and I’ve been hooked ever since. It’s not easy to do; you have to get on a plane or drive to great fly-fishing locations like the rivers around Mount Shasta. There’s this book out about the world’s 50 best fly-fishing locations. I’ve been to 32 of them on four continents; my goal is to hit all 50. Recently, I bought a home in Colorado on the Roaring Fork River to satisfy that passion for fly-fishing.

How are you going to balance fly-fishing and your other hobbies with all the demands of running a company and leading a major chamber of commerce?

Well, for this year while I’m chamber chairman, I’ll do a little less fly-fishing. I’ll admit to being a workaholic. However, I’ve been blessed with good people here at Mercury who have stepped up when I have taken on these other civic responsibilities.

Are there any places that you haven’t been that you’d like to visit?

I haven’t spent much time or seen much of Africa. There are 30 countries there and I’ve only seen a handful. I’d love to go to Ethiopia, Botswana and Tanzania. And, as I mentioned, I would like to go to Antarctica. I’ve been talking with a friend of mine about a fishing trip to Tierra del Fuego, right on the southern tip of Argentina. From there, you can take a boat or a plane to Antarctica – at the right time of year, of course. I imagine there’s not a whole lot to see there, you land there, you walk around a bit, you get on a plane and come back. But it’s still something I want to see.

What do you plan to do when you retire?

I don’t see myself retiring anytime soon. I may slow down a bit over the next 10 years or so, but I don’t think I’ll ever fully retire. Sure, I’d like to do more fly-fishing, but I don’t want to be one of those folks who spends all day on the golf course.

What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received?

“Never take ‘no’ for an answer.” I really learned what that meant when I was with the Navy Seabees: We lived by that can-do attitude.