Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Everett.
Jeff, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My introduction to flight simulation began in the US Airforce where I worked on F111 and C141 flight simulators for 8 years. The company I would soon come to work for, Rediffusion Simulation, came to Norton Airforce Base where I was assigned at the time, and implemented a major simulator upgrade. This upgrade was the addition of a visual system to the C141 simulator. Once I saw this new system, I never considered working on anything else again. It completely engulfed me with its state of the art technology and importance to pilot training.
After working with Rediffusion for several months, implementing and maintaining our new visual system, I was offered a Training Instructor position. I left the Air Force and headed to Texas. I held the positions of Training Instructor, Field Engineer, Supervisor of Installations, and Manager of Customer Services, over the next 15 years. In 2000 I was asked to join RSi as Product Manager in addition to assisting with sales. I had developed many contacts over the years in my previous positions that would allow me to be integral to the sales team at RSi.
RSi’s software engineer, Craig Phillips was an old friend from the Air Force. We joined forces to develop a visual system product that was both cost effective and supportable by the customer long term. We also sought to steer the company towards a targeted market segment and become a sustainable business.
Eventually we bought out two of the original owners and then merged with our third owner, Rob Rossow, another software engineer. We had excellent product and operational expertise, but needed finance and business experience. We recruited a long term friend, Tom Stelter, that both Craig and I had known from the Air Force as well as Rediffusion, to become our CEO and run our finances. Tom had years of managerial, engineering management and CEO experience with several simulation companies. He had been a mentor to me early in my career and he had the trust of all three owners.
So my story is about partnerships with very smart people, and through them, having the opportunity to build a company that we could all be proud of.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
RSi has encountered some major hurdles on the path to creating a sustainable business.
The barrier to entry in this market is formidable but as a startup, gaining potential customer’s trust was by far the most challenging.
Simulators are extremely expensive devices and users can keep their simulators in service for up to 20 or 30 years. As a startup, we had to convince our customers that our new visual system would not only save them money on initial procurement, but would also remain cost effective for the entire lifespan of the product.
Visual systems are designed to display an exact re-creation of major airports (which we refer to as databases) around the world. In this industry, your ability to be competitive depends in part on the amount of airports you have in your library. As a new company, we had to build our airport library from scratch which caused us to be overlooked by some of the major airlines at first. Although over the years we have developed an extensive airport library, this is still an on-going effort even today.
Business growth creates its own challenges. RSi has relocated three times since 2000, twice in just the past 3 years. New employee recruitment in our unique field can be extremely difficult and time consuming. Requirements placed upon us by larger customers (like ISO9000/2015 certification) exhaust our resources and call for outside specialists.
Cash flow is another challenge that we face as we have always adhered to the policy that we will remain debt free. Debt can be a killer for small companies, so we have avoided ever having to use our bank line of credit despite the fact that we must fund all of our own development. We are able to stay on track with our finances through thorough planning and budgeting company-wide.
RSi Visual Systems – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
The story of RSi starts in 1996 at Rediffusion Simulation, a UK based company specializing in manufacturing full flight simulators for pilot training. Rediffusion did not consider simulator updates to be a viable market for their company, but three of my colleagues and I saw a rather large market potential for upgrades and left Rediffusion to form a new company to address this market.
So we founded RSi Visual Systems, Inc. in Southlake, Texas. Close proximity to the DFW International Airport was important to us, but we also loved the area. In the beginning, RSi’s main business was the repair and updating of older visual systems. Updates included new image generators, projection systems, and eventually led to complete optical systems as well.
At first, RSi did not have its own image generation system. In August 1999, the owner of PanAm International Flight Academy offered seed money for RSi to develop its own image generator, in exchange for delivery of five systems. This offer came with the stipulation that the image generator had to be 100% PC based with no proprietary hardware, which was unheard of in the industry at that time. RSi developed and delivered its first image generator with a projection system to PAIFA September 2001.
The visual system was certified by the FAA that same month. RSi succeeded in applying commercial, off the shelf PC and projector components to visual system solutions for flight training. RSi cut the cost of visual systems in half for our customers, while still enabling FAA certifications of their simulators for advanced pilot flight training.
RSi has continued developing new visual simulation products to serve the simulator upgrade market for 21 years now. Our product offering has grown from 2 product lines to 9 in the past 7 years and RSi is now able to provide complete integrated visual system solutions encompassing display systems, image generators, scene generation, installation and maintenance support tools.
RSi has grown from 8 employees in 2002, to 65 employees today. We attribute this growth to our excellent customer service and the product value we have been able to offer our customers.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Thus far, RSi has been very successful in “fixed wing” aircraft simulation and we expect our market share in this area will continue to increase over the next 5 to 10 years, but not by much. The area of growth we are focused on in the coming years is with “rotary wing” or helicopter simulation. We have delivered several products for this particular application and are in the process of developing more specialized solutions for helicopters to meet their unique training requirements.
We also have our eye on “fast jet” aircraft simulation. This market segment also has unique training requirements, and we look forward to being able to develop new solutions to fit their needs.
Contact Info:
- Address: 615 Freeport Parkway,
Coppell, TX 75019 - Website: http://rsi-visuals.com
- Phone: (817) 510-0350
- Email: sales@rsi-visuals.com
Image Credit:
Kyle Montgomery
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
