Jetrader - January/February 2013 - 6

Q&A

Jep Thornton

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It’s really about making sure the value of the services ISTAT provides makes it compelling to be a member.

Aerolease Aviation Incoming ISTAT President
Looking for his reﬂections on the growth of ISTAT over the years, and his thoughts on the future, Jetrader spoke with incoming ISTAT President Jep Thornton recently. A founding member of ISTAT and an aviation industry veteran, Thornton has experience working for airlines, operating lessors, and as an aerospace lender. Thornton is currently responsible for deal origination with a focus on strategy and ﬁnance, with Aerolease Aviation. During his career in aircraft leasing and trading, Thornton has bought and sold hundreds of aircraft and credits ISTAT’s networking opportunities as a huge asset for many of those deals. “It’s been an immense tool,” Thornton said. “I can’t even begin to tell you how many deals I’ve done that germinated from an ISTAT event.” Thornton’s term as ISTAT President will ofﬁcially begin at the close of ISTAT Americas in March. Jetrader: What sparked your interest in aviation, and how did that lead to your career in this ﬁeld? Thornton: My father was in the airline business, and I have been interested in aircraft and aviation since I can remember. As a young kid I was a pretty good aircraft spotter. I could tell you what airline was what, and what aircraft they ﬂew before I was 10 years old. Jetrader: How did you initially get involved with ISTAT? Thornton: I was involved with ISTAT in the beginning — in 1983 — when it was started. I was at the ﬁrst conference in 1983, when it was just 60 of us. Basically, ISTAT was started because there was no organization helping aircraft traders and leasing companies. The only opportunity we had to meet was at for-proﬁt conferences, so we decided to set up ISTAT and have a foundation and make it a non-proﬁt. Jetrader: How have you seen ISTAT change and grow since you joined? Thornton: In the beginning, ISTAT was just a bunch of friends who got together and set this up, and now it’s grown into this substantial industry organization. Just seeing the number of members and the way it has grown has been a change. We’re coming up on 3,000 (members) pretty soon. When we ﬁrst started it was 60-70 guys and now we’re approaching 1,500 (attendees) at the big conference. It’s one of those things where, once it gets this size, you see the organization changing from a little friendly organization to more of an institutional organization, which is what we ﬁnd ourselves with now. So the questions are, “How do you structure things? How do you manage the organization now in the context of the scale?” That’s the challenge of ISTAT now. So far it’s been done well. The growth has been fantastic, and I think one of the bigger changes is that the make-up of the members has expanded from just aircraft leasing and trading companies, to banks and investors, and all kinds of different organizations that work with the aircraft leasing and trading community. It has really created a very interesting community in which the basis of the community — meaning the lessors and the traders — really have effective networking opportunities

6 The ofﬁcial publication of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading

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Jetrader - January/February 2013

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