Mercury Air Group welcomed Christopher Cooper back to the fold in May 2017 as Executive Vice President of Corporate Fuels. In his new role, Chris partners with Homan Asiri, where his primary objective will be to organize and direct all of MercFuel’s efforts toward a single strategy.

“It's a collaborative function of working together with Homan, but in fact applying different skillsets that we'll both be able to employ to help the mutual success of the organization,” Chris said.

He explained that in much of what’s happening in the general aviation marketplace are changes associated with consolidation. An example of this is the departure of direct branded oil company supply (such as Exxon and Chevron) from the general aviation marketplace, along with the consolidating down to two major service brands, Signature Flight Support and Atlantic Aviation.

“That consolidation is what’s really opening up opportunities for Mercury to employ its expertise and its experience in the industry to exact benefits to its customer base,” Chris said. “Our future is built upon steering our customers through all of the consolidations to ensure that they navigate through the changes successfully.”

Chris rejoins Mercury with a background in general aviation with Chevron, where he also became their Global Marketing Manager for their global commercial aviation business. In his final role, he was tasked with divesting Chevron’s aviation businesses in Latin America, Central Africa and the Caribbean.

From there he joined the Mercury Air Group as the Director and General Manager of Corporate Fuels, managing the development of Mercury’s supply, both through product supply and development of sales channels.

Chris returned to another opportunity with an oil major when he moved on to a Senior Supply Coordinator position with Phillips 66, where he managed the distribution of products from Phillips 66’s refineries and terminals into the marketplace, as well as the coordination of product purchases and exchanges with other manufacturers and third-party suppliers.

Chris eventually became their Director of Business Development, tasked with bringing best practices to the general aviation segment: coordinating product supply optimization as well as expansion of Phillips 66’s branded and unbranded FBO opportunities.

Chris was welcomed back to the fold at Mercury Fuel and immediately got to work helping to define the strategy for MercFuel going forward and determining resources needed to execute on that strategy.

He notes that Mercury’s dynamic nature is one of the biggest reasons he wanted to come back. “In this ever-changing industry, Mercury provides me the opportunity to work and develop relationships in a problem-solving environment. Mercury’s longstanding partnerships and customer relationships provide that opportunity for me…Mercury is one of the most dynamic and entrepreneurial organizations I know,” Chris said.

Chris’s vision for the future of MercFuel is to become the “preferred fuels services provider by consistently providing efficiency, accuracy, reliability and great customer service,” he said.

He hopes to achieve this vision by focusing on several pillars: operational excellence, supply optimization and developing a high performing organization. “Those are the things we can actually change, and by becoming more effective and more efficient in those categories, we can use them to support that mission,” Chris said.

He said that Mercury’s unique positioning in the industry provides opportunities, and for him, those are the exciting challenges.

“Because of Mercury’s position - their reputation, their prowess and especially Joe Czyzyk’s leadership - that’s the opportunity I saw that made the most sense to transition from major oil to a more hands-on role on the Mercury team, “ Chris said.