In 2001, our founder and CEO, Luther Kurtz, started his first skydiving center in Northern Michigan. He ran things out of the back of his car (an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, for the record) in the Parachute Landing Area of this scenic region. Together with his only other employee, pilot Greg Bentley, they completed 160 tandem jumps in their first season as a business.
In those early days, Luther would meet their skydivers at the PLA for a comprehensive training session before riding them to the airport in the Oldsmobile. Greg would then take them to the skies for a scenic flight around Little Traverse Bay before dropping Luther and his tandem diver over the PLA. Thanks to the speed of freefall, Luther and the buzzing diver would land first before Greg eventually descended back at the airport. Greg would then drive the Oldsmobile back to the PLA just as Luther finished packing the parachute and training the next student.
At the end of the day, they would edit the customer videos and send the VHS by United States Post to the customer to relive the powerful, adrenaline-inducing memories at home with their friends and families.
This was the beginning of a nationwide business that now takes care of over 3,000 skydives per day.
