For 30 years, Lisle Wood worked for Montana Power as a draftsman and in engineering services, computer services, and administration. During much of that time, he traveled on the company’s three airplanes: a Learjet 35 and two Cessna 340s.

The availability of the aircraft was crucial to his job, Wood said, because of the great distances from the Butte headquarters to the company’s seven divisions throughout the state—some, like Billings, Calispell, Lewiston, and Colstrip, 225 to 350 miles away. Wood also flew frequently to visit energy companies in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle with which Montana Power partnered on a billion-dollar project to build four coal-fired power plants in Colstrip. Other Montana Power engineers, lawyers, and executives frequently accompanied Wood on trips related to the Colstrip project, sometimes to deal with objections from environmental groups.

Only three commercial flights departed Butte daily, often involving transfers, which ate up even more of his day. Automobile travel was out of the question because some trips consumed a full day each way.

Because of pressing business, Wood traveled twice by himself on the Lear. Usually, to make trips more cost-efficient, he arranged trips around the schedules of colleagues who also were traveling in his direction.

Wood figures that the San Francisco trips cost $750 hourly on the Learjet when fully loaded with co-workers, meaning: $1,800 round-trip. The savings, he said, came when calculating the work hours saved and the money not spent on meals and hotel rooms. Wood estimated that each trip saved the company close to $5,000 over flying commercial, not including the benefits of having well-rested workers back at their desks in Butte the next day.

Use of the jets also indirectly saved the company millions of dollars because project engineers could monitor the plant’s scale models. That improved communications between the sites and headquarters, he added.

When the Colstrip plants finally were built, additional executives were hired, which meant even greater demand for the company airplanes.

Flying “saved time” because “trying to get from Butte anywhere is a task,” Wood said.

“Obviously, if only one person was going on the Learjet, it was not very cost-productive. But the other thing was the loss of time.“Time is money, too. Most of corporate work is under time pressure, so if you could save time, it’s valuable.”

“Time is money, too. Most of corporate work is under time pressure, so if you could save time, it’s valuable.”

The hours saved helped Wood be “a lot more productive” and made family life “a whole lot better,” he said. “Meetings are arduous enough as it is. You come back and get a good night’s rest, and your productivity is maintained. For quality of life, there’s no comparison.”

Now retired, Wood has more time to fly the Piper J3 that he’s owned for 25 years. He likes to get up in the air and enjoy the Montana sky. He also helps friends with their airplanes.

Montana Power has been merged into what is now Northwestern Energy. But Wood offered advice to companies that have their own aircraft: Make airplanes more cost-efficient by utilizing them only for business purposes—and then using them as often as possible.

“If you can keep an airplane working, the cost goes way down and productivity goes way up,” he said. “You’ve got to keep the airplane working, which is the best way to afford its high cost.”— By Hillel Kuttler