Maytag Aircraft Corporation is pleased to announce its acquisition of three contracts in a relatively short period of time.

In Huntsville, Alabama, Maytag will stand up operations with Redstone Arsenal, a U.S. Army post following construction of two fuel facilities. The contractor-owned, contractor-operated (COCO) contract is with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Energy, a client Maytag works with frequently, but the contract itself is “the first one of its kind for us as a prime that involves construction and operations and maintenance,” said David Nelson, Maytag President and COO.

According to Nelson, Maytag will serve as the prime contractor, and they’re working with a large subcontractor who will spend the first 12-18 months designing and constructing two locations, both fuel facilities with offload capabilities – one retail storage, and the other bulk storage.

“Then once that's completed, Maytag will assume the operations and maintenance of the facility for the oncoming years,” Nelson said. The contract has a 4-year base, with a three 5-year options, and it involves some aircraft refueling, he said.

The second contract Maytag was able to secure was also in July, at Naval Air Station Kingsville in southern Texas. The Naval Air Station is primarily a training base, “so we’re refueling a lot of small, trainer-type aircraft,” Nelson said.

“It’s a pretty basic but important refueling contract,” he said. Maytag is set to begin the contract on October 1.

Finally, Maytag will be instrumental in handling the aircraft refueling at its third recent award,  Naval Station Rota in Spain. The contract -  at a naval air base at a strategic location and a main stop before entering the middle east - is one that the company had been trying to win for years, Nelson said.  

“It increases our European footprint with the other contracts we have in Italy, Germany and the UK,” he said.

What was remarkable about this contract was how quickly Maytag was able to pull it together, with an unusually short phase-in period: two weeks. Under normal circumstances, a contract like this would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-60 days. 

“It was a huge challenge for the company,” Nelson said.

What that involved was not only getting capital equipment, but also the hiring of the workforce and negotiating a Spanish union agreement, combined with setting up the Maytag organization in Spain (registering, ensuring they were capable of processing Spanish payroll, etc.).

“There was a lot of people who didn't think could be done,” Nelson said. “And it took a lot of people - we probably had 2-3 times the people that I would normally have in a phase-in, because of the people in Madrid setting up the business, while the operating-type people dealing with the operations down in Rota,” he said, “but it went fairly smoothly.”

“The thing that made it the most difficult was not just the two-week time frame, but Spain is probably one of the most difficult countries to set up a business and establish labor agreements, and compliance, etc. Their labor laws are pretty complicated,” Nelson said. He attributes much of their success in this area to excellent Spanish legal representation who was able to get things done.   

“At the end of all of it, it was a large success: the customer was happy, and we were happy, and it’s all good,” Nelson said.