SkyLink USA seeks dangerous assignments

by Heather B. Hayes
for Virginia Business
December 2007

When others flee disasters, SkyLink USA runs toward them. The Dulles-based firm provides transportation, communications and other logistical support to government and nonprofit organizations during crises around the world.

While there are plenty of logistics competitors, SkyLink USA occupies an unusual niche, says David Henze, the company’s president and CEO. “We are on-demand, we do jobs that a lot of other companies either can’t do or won’t do, and we get projects accomplished and things moved to places that define the word ‘difficult.’”

Recently the company moved a generator transformer to Baghdad to provide electricity for nearly 150,000 families. “We uniquely designed a way so we were able to move it via aircraft,” Henze explains. “The only way it would have gotten to Iraq otherwise would have been by ocean freighter, and that would have been a two- to three-month transit. Instead, in 36 hours, we had it delivered, and it was in operation in a week and a half.”

SkyLink USA’s customers include the International Red Cross, United Nations and World Food Programme. The company is a part of SkyLink Group in Toronto. Since 9/11, Skylink USA has been involved in so many projects in the Middle East that SkyLink Group created a new subsidiary, SkyLink Arabia.

SkyLink USA currently has eight employees and 10 consultants. Henze won’t release revenues but says the company has been growing at an annual rate of 10 percent, after accounting for the transfer of contracts to SkyLink Arabia. He expects employment to double and revenue to climb 20 to 30 percent in the next year.