TWO MILLION DOLLARS IN TEN YEARS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 77, 13 December 1940, Page 12

TWO MILLION DOLLARS IN TEN YEARS

New Zealander Lowell Yerex Sells His South American Air Lines

NE of the biggest air transport services in the world changed hands in October, and it was a New Zealander who pocketed the two million-odd dollars reported to be the purchase price. He was Lowell Yerex, the one man in this one-man organisation that spanned and criss-crossed Latin America. / The story of the sale of Lowell Yerex’s TACA (Transportes Aereos Centro Americanos) is one episode of a bigger story still: a tale of competition between PanAmerican Airways and American Export Lines. Until 1937, Pan-American Airways held their field unrivalled. They progressed fast but with caution. They went south to South America (without material effect on TACA). They crossed the Pacific to Japan and China, and passed through Hawaii towards New Zealand. Across’. the Atlantic their "planes began flying to Europe. Lately, in tune with the United States’ co-operative attitude towards Britain, they have been making Bermuda a regular pot of call for the Atlantic Clippers, so that mails can be censored, freights and passengers checked. ‘A competitor came on the scene in 1937, when the American Export Lines steamship company began to e a practical interest in air travel. They announced this year that they planned to start a transatlantic service, and to their twin-engined consolidated flying boat they were going to add three big Sikorskys released by the Navy. However, they were held. up when a Senate committee turned down their application for an air mail appropriation, which was to help them on the way. Huge Organisation By way of consolation for this blow to their hopes, they were able to con-

clude negotiations for taking over TACA, and Yerex stepped out two months ago the richer by two million dollars, and still holding down the job of manager for TACA on. behalf of American Export Lines. A huge organisation had changed hands: TACA lines fan out sver British Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The company controls 235 landing grounds or airports, and makes timetabled stops at 125 of them. To check on its ’plane movements TACA operates 40 radio stations, and it employs 700 men to see to the running and servicing of 22 tri-motored Ford aeroplanes; six Lockheed 14’s, three Curtiss Condors, 21 lighter ‘planes.

Big freight-carrying contracts brought in most of Lowell Yerex’s income. In 1939 TACA grossed 1,079,000 dollars, of which about 216,000 dollars was net. This year the estimated net profit was to be 250,000 dollars, because TACA was still growing and growing fast. The Career of Yerex Lowell Yerex was born in Wellington, 45 years ago. At the age of 15 he was away and out on his own. He went to America, and attended university in Indiana. In North Dakota he was a school teacher. When war broke out in 1914 he learned to fly with the Royal Flying Corps in Canada and was shot down and held a prisoner of war during air fighting over France. It was 1931 that his career took on meteoric speed. Three young men engaged him to fly them in. their *plane from Mexico to Honduras. Arrived there, they began to ferry freight, and Yerex took over a part interest in the machine when they defaulted in salary payments. His regular run brought him enough to buy two more ’planes, and he formed his company. Revolution in Honduras An accident to an eye did not stop him. In 1933 he was asked to assist the Honduras government to put down a rebellion. A bullet came through the floor of his ’plane, slashed his forehead, and, although he made a safe landing, cost him one eye. With a glass eye, he carried on. That year he opened a route .to Salvador and a year later had purchased the national line in Nicaragua. By 1935 he was in Guatemala and the next. year in British Honduras. Wrigley’s big contract for carrying out of the jungle the base material for chewing gum (chicle) came to him in 1937, and in 1938 he linked his lines to serve the Nicaraguan mines. When he buys a big ’plane, Yerex rips out all the interior furniture and fittings, makes provision for movable seats if they are required for passengers, and handles them otherwise as if they were big lorries,

Heavy Machinery by Air When, in 1938, a Canadian company opened a big mine at Siuna, they asked Yerex to bring in by air the heavy machinery for working their 800-ton-a-day output. He carried in three tractors, and followed them with bulldozers, graders, two heavy mills weighing 110,000 pounds when assembled, and a 2,300 h.p. Diesel plant. In Guatemala he carried the chicle gum to the coast in 40 minutes over jungle paths which used to take one or two weeks by mule train. Last year he added three Costa Rican airlines to his collection, and this year planned to start at Panama with a service which would traverse Central America from one end to the other. In less than ten years Lowell Yerex has built a company which netted him

a substantial annual profit and which brought him two million dollars when he wanted to pass on the worries. And now it keeps him as a manager. His plans to cross the Gulf of Orleans into the United States would have put him at cross-purposes with Pan-American Airways. And _ PanAmerican could fight hard. Now he can concentrate on his most-loved job, running the ‘planes from the airport and in the air, while American Export have all the cares of office work. They have missed on the Atlantic crossing, but buying out Yerex gives them a place in which they can practise to make the competition ‘more keen when the time is ripe. Meanwhile, Lowell Yerex still keeps his thumb on the business which he created out of nothing.