Sean Dorgan
Mentor, Bertarelli Institute for Family Entrepreneurship
I attended Babson with the initial idea of graduating and working on Wall Street. September 11th was the fall of my senior year and with few job prospects in NYC post graduation (I will say Babson did get me a lot of leads and offers in the Boston area, but I wanted to be near family), my Dad asked me to join the family business (which I had worked in the summer after my Sophomore year). A business that was in a huge transition phase from mainly furniture restoration (home and corporate interiors) to the aviation industry. I joined the company with the idea that if I didn’t like it, I would gain experience in all facets of small business and would have the opportunity to wait out the job market in NYC. As it turned out, I really enjoyed the business and saw the opportunities down the road. I initially began my experience in the office in sales and customer service, but later transitioned to the field as a technician for a couple of years when we were just getting started in aviation. At the time it was very humbling, but I have to say it was of the most valuable time I spent with the company because I no longer just talked the talk, I was one of the top techs in the company. This gave me the experience and understanding to train additional technicians as we continued to grow. In 2012 I was appointed president of the company and the rest is history. We now service nearly all of the large private aircraft fleets in the United States as well as many Heads of State around the globe. Our presence is mainly on the eastern half of the US, but we plan to expand westward in the coming months and years. On the side, I invest in various real estate projects including single family and multifamily residential and commercial.
I currently live in new Jersey, just a few miles from our headquarters where I have been married for 11 years and have 2 awesome kids! For fun, I love cycling, running, triathlon, surfing, cars, and finding warm places to go when it gets cold.
Students can ask me about:
- Growing a family business
- Transition from one generation to the next
- Domestic expansion and opening satellite offices
- Insight into the high end service industry
- Aviation industry insights (mainly corporate/private)
About the Leather Institute
The Leather Institute is headquartered in New Jersey and currently has service operations based in NY/NJ, Central Illinois, and South Florida. Additionally, The Leather Institute offers services worldwide via our mobile team and certified affiliates. The Leather Institute maintains an excellent reputation in the aviation community for providing products, education, and services for interior leather components. The Leather Institute is a FAA/EASA Certified Repair Station. We have a prestigious list of clients which continues to grow while expanding our network to provide services to the high end furniture, automotive and hospitality markets globally. We seek mutually beneficial joint ventures in new markets or developing profit centers within existing service companies. We provide refinishing techniques for leather and other substrates including synthetic leather products like Ultraleather. We have an active R&D center that concentrates on providing the best possible products with our environment in mind. We have formulated Green cleaning products, and colorants.
More about Sean Dorgan
You can also find Sean Dorgan's profile on LinkedIn.