Today we’d like to introduce you to Trent Whatcott.
Hi Trent, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
One cold, rainy morning, after my family and I had returned to live in Utah, as I was perusing social media, I came across an article about the new Provo airport. I only knew of Provo airport from my many viewings of the movie Fletch, starring Chevy Chase, and it looked nothing like the pictures I saw in the article.
Having worked for Southwest Airlines and afterward, traveling significantly for most of my career, I love airports. Since the cold and rain put a stranglehold on work for the day, I decided to call it quits and take a ride over to check the airport out. I jumped in my car and made the short trip over to take a look.
I remember turning into the drive and noting the architecture, the size of the building, and the airplanes parked behind it. There was NO WAY I was getting out of my car in the inclement weather, so I drove slowly past each window. I could see the ticket counters for Allegiant and Breeze, the open hallway with a main street-style false wall on the other side, and the wood wall that separated TSA and security. I could look through and see the waiting area at one of the gates and baggage claim a little farther south. When I got to the end of the drive. I stopped for a minute to look inside one last time before I drove away.
Once I was satisfied that I had seen it all, I put my car back into 1st, released the parking brake, and looked over my shoulder to make sure no cars were coming up on my left. As I did, I noticed three figures off in the parking lot through the cold and rain. As my eyes adjusted, I realized it was a woman and two children; One about 10, who was struggling to pull the one big suitcase they had through what had become mud in the rain. The other child, a toddler, was having NONE of it. He was clearly mid-trantrum and slowing the progress toward the dry warmth of the airport. The mother was bent over, coaxing the little dude along. I chuckled to myself as I thought, “I know what I’d be saying to that kid!”
When the woman stood up straight, my smirk disappeared as I realized, “She has an infant wrapped in a BabyBjörn!” A fleeting thought of my sweet, southern, angel Grandmother flew threw my mind and how she would have said, “Now Trent, you get out there and help that poor momma!”
Before I had the time to think about being cold or getting wet, I shifted into neutral, pulled the parking brake, and jumped out of the car. As I did, the wind and cold rain took my breath, and I had to take a moment to get my bearings. Once I had my feet under me again, I ran across the two driveways and onto the mud of the parking lot.
I grabbed the suitcase from the older boy, snatched up the toddler who began to giggle, and said, “LET’S GOOOOOO!” as I started toward the airport. Within seconds, we were inside the warm and dry building. I ran into the men’s room and loaded up on paper towels to wipe off the two boys’ cold, wet faces, arms, and legs, and removed their soaked jackets, while their mother saw about her newborn and herself. Once we were all back together, I walked with them to baggage check, wished them well, and headed back out into the elements. As I looked across the parking lot, I thought, “There MUST be a better way to treat people who are paying to fly out of the airport.”
I got back in my car and began to make the short drive back home. By the time I pulled into my driveway, the rough idea of The Hangar had begun to take form. The name came later, but over the course of the next year, I went through several processes to bring The Hangar to life.
Since then, we have developed the first off-site VIP-for-All parking and car care experience for Provo Airport. We charge 1/3 less for parking during a customer’s travel, we meet them at their car door, load them up in our Mercedes Sprinter van, and drive them to the terminal door and wish them a safe, enjoyable trip. On the day of their return travel, our system checks for any early or late arrivals, and we meet them in passenger pick up and drive them right back to their car door. While they are gone, we can provide any automotive service in existence. From simple things like emissions tests and registrations, to detailing and preventive maintenance, all the way to collision repair and major engine work.
From that cold, rainy morning, The Hangar was born!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has definitely not been an easy road. Finding people who are going to be flying out of the entire PVU Catchment Area has been our biggest struggle. We do not have the financial ability to cast a wide net and invest in advertising, so we have to depend on SEO, word of mouth, and social media. None of these are fast or very effective at approaching an audience as broad as we would like to reach.
Building the infrastructure behind the scenes to support customers in a way that makes the experience feel personal, when we are servicing several people at once, is always a challenge. For an organization that is dedicated to providing everyone a VIP experience is difficult.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about The Hangar?
Before I even knew it had a name, marketing fascinated me. The backs of cereal boxes, commercials, advertisements, and brochures framed my initial exposure to marketing, and I couldn’t get enough! After the Dallas Auto Show every year, bags and bags of brochures from every brand filled every corner of my room and as many corners of other rooms as my mom’s patience would allow.
Unfortunately for the young, hopeless car fanatic in me, that patience didn’t last long, and she required that I select only enough brochures to fill one convention bag full and toss the rest. Because I knew full well that she was compromising by letting me keep one bag, I kept my mouth shut and selected the best-of-the-best. By the time the next auto show came around, I had that entire bag of brochures memorized.
Other industries and products held my attention as well: Bicycles, skateboards, and apparel marketing all captivated me, and I took opportunities to learn retail marketing through those markets.
I enrolled at the University of North Texas and endured my other classes, so I could learn things like consumer behavior, advertising, international marketing. The data side of marketing in marketing reserch absolutely blew my mind! Marketing held so much more for me than I had ever realized before and the day finally came when I walked across the stage and received my diploma.
I have since had the opportuity to launch new companies and products in higher education publishing, consumer goods, controlled agriculture, the automotive aftermarket, real estate services, sales training, and SaaS. I’ve launched products and services for large corporations, venture investment firms, and for my own companies. I have been blessed to travel all over the country and in many parts of the world.
I feel like my life as a marketer has now come full circle, as I now have the priviledge of sharing what I have learned, as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Utah Valley University. I am honored every class period to bring marketing and sales principles to life as I take students through my marketing journey full of curves, u-turns, dead-ends, toll roads, speedways, caution signs, pot holes, flat tires, blown gaskets, detours, complete crash-outs, and successful final destinations. Seeing them experience ah-ha moments, turning points, and clouds lifting is the highlight of my life and I’m grateful every day to be in a position where I can witness these moments.
Between those experiences and what I have been fortunate to build from that singular moment on a frigid, rainy morning at Provo Municipal Airport, my career has been a dream and I so look forward to what’s around the next turn!
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Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
1. Ecstatic Faces that result from the time, talents, and resources I have been able to share. Ecstatic faces are my drug of choice.
2. The way my heart leaps when one of my kids walks in the door, and how it drives me to say a prayer of thanks for their safety, their lives, and that they are now also my friends.
3. The Utah mountains, especially when I can experience them top-down in my Mazda MX-5 Miata roadster. Why? It is my “One Particular Harbor”: “It’s magic kind of medicine that no doctor could prescribe.” -Jimmy Buffett
4. The Utah mountains in my MX-5, with my sidekick, Brendan, our autistic son, riding shotgun. Seeing his beautiful face with an ear-to-ear smile, full of excitement and wonder, as he raises his hands high to feel the wind pass through his fingers, reminds me that there is still room for innocence, delight, and true happiness in this world. We may have to look harder than we used to, but it’s there all the same.
5. Cars. Because cars.
6. Pickleball. Because pickleball.
Pricing:
- $8/day for VIP-for-All, Airport Parking, with a complimentary ride to and from the airport: Our car, to their car, to the terminal door.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.provoairportparking.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561477403784
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trentwhatcott/
