Hammerhead
Benco Dental rep Marty Schayowitz takes to the sky in his spare time.
The Schayowitz File
Raised in: North Plainfield, N.J.
Age: 51
Company: Benco Dental
Territory: North and central Jersey
Title: Territory representative
Lives in: Randolph, N.J.
Noteworthy: Loves his Stearman
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Call Marty Schayowitz a hammerhead and he just might say "thanks." Schayowitz is a sales rep for Benco Dental, calling on dentists in central and north Jersey. He’s also a pilot. His plane of choice: The Stearman, a 1930s- and 1940s-era biplane on which virtually all World War II pilots were trained. The hammerhead? An aerobatic maneuver in which you fly the plane straight up until it literally stops, then falls to the left or right.
This is Schayowitz’s idea of fun.
Perhaps it is the fact that he was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, that led Schayowitz in some unconventional directions. He was born 51 years ago in Fairbanks, where his father was stationed in the army. He only lived there a few months. "I remember absolutely nothing about Fairbanks, but I’m told it was dark and cold," he says. Shortly after his birth, the family moved back to New Jersey, where his mother was from. There, Schayowitz’s father, Bill, went to work for his father-in-law, Sol Zemel.
Zemel had opened a plumbing supply business in the early 1940s. After the war, the business boomed, as housing took off in metropolitan New York. In the 1970s, Zemel expanded into heating and air conditioning. "The business was a tremendous success," recalls Schayowitz. "We supplied all the contractors who did new construction in the
New Jersey market."
Young Schayowitz started working at the family business at the age of 13. He was the counter sales guy, meaning he would take the contractors’ lists of supplies, and run up and down the aisles fetching them. "I worked there through high school, college, vacations and any other free time I had. It was a way of life for me. And it was there, watching my grandfather and father, that I learned the true meaning of integrity and very important, basic sales skills."
Schayowitz attended Boston University and majored in business, then returned to New Jersey to work in the business. Gradually, the environment changed. At the end of the 1980s, the housing market turned sour, driving many contractors out of business. The big-box retailers, such as Home Depot, stormed into the market, undercutting small independent businesses like Sol Zemel Inc. "It wasn’t fun doing business with the contractors and [operating in] the economic conditions that existed," says Schayowitz.
Finally, in 1993, the Schayowitz family made the tough decision to sell the business. "Everyone realized the change in the marketplace," he says. "We weren’t in a position to compete with the prominent players, and we were getting squeezed on pricing."
His non-compete agreement precluded Schayowitz from participating in the heating and air conditioning business for a period of time. That meant, in essence, he had to find a new career. He found it while sitting in his dentist’s chair.
"I was being treated when he said he knew a dental distributor, [with whom] he did a little bit of business," Schayowitz recalls. So he met with the dealer, and the two discussed forming a partnership, in which Schayowitz would create a field sales force to expand the business. Unfortunately, the two were unable to come to terms. That led Schayowitz to make a big decision. "I had put all this time and effort into the industry [exploring the partnership], so I decided to open a company myself, paralleling the operation that he had." He leased 1,800 square feet in Somerville, N.J., hired a nurse and dental hygienist, and started knocking on the doors of local dentists and physicians. The name of his company was MediDent Supply.
Schayowitz knew all about sales and distribution, but he didn’t know much about the dental and medical markets. Hence, the hygienist and nurse, both of whom lent credibility to the new company. MediDent focused on infection control products, including gloves, masks and other barrier products. "This was 1994; AIDS had broken loose, and it was the hottest topic," he says.
Manufacturers weren’t particularly eager to do business with upstart MediDent, forcing Schayowitz to buy many supplies from other dental dealers. Even so, MediDent hung on, and manufacturers started coming around. Within a year and a half, the company had reached $1 million in sales. Still, Schayowitz found it difficult to attract the major product lines he needed in order to take the business to the next level.
Sullivan Dental - which wanted to fill a gap in north Jersey - approached him about buying the company. Schayowitz found the offer attractive. "At MediDent, I was in more of a managerial capacity. But my love is relationship-based selling. I enjoy the people contact. I still get a rush when I make a great sale." So Sullivan acquired the assets of MediDent, and Schayowitz joined the company as a rep in the New Jersey market.
A couple of years later, in 1997, he joined Benco Dental. Benco was founded in 1930 by Benjamin Cohen. Eventually, his son, Larry, succeeded him in the leadership post, and was still somewhat active when Schayowitz came on board. "I had a great feeling about [Larry Cohen] - his integrity and warmth," he says. "I could draw parallels between the way he was running the business and the way my grandfather had run his. And they offered me the ability to do what I do best - sell."
Schayowitz and his wife, Arlyn, have five children: Adam, Noah, Myles, Breena and Mariah. And, on July 12, he took possession of another child - a newly rebuilt Stearman.
First Impressions: Remember your first airplane flight?
Marty Schayowitz: I was 16. I had always enjoyed aviation and everything related to it. After hounding my parents for a long time, they brought me to Somerset Airport in New Jersey for an introductory, half-hour flight on a Piper Cherokee. I had never been in a small plane before. I think they thought, "He’ll be scared, he won’t like it, and we’ll be done with it." But I loved it, and I was hooked. I took weekly lessons until I earned my private pilot’s license in the fall of 1973.
FI: How old do you have to be to fly a plane?
Schayowitz: You need to be 16 to solo an airplane, and 17 to get a private pilot’s license (enabling you to fly passengers). I was flying a plane by myself before I was driving.
Over the next 10 years, I earned my commercial [fly-by-hire] license, instrument license (allowing me to fly solely by instruments, rather than sight), multi-engine license (faster and more complex than single-engine planes), and glider and hot-air balloon licenses.
FI: Hot air balloon?
Schayowitz: For my 30th birthday, I was given a hot air balloon ride. We tried four or five times to get the ride, but it always got canceled due to weather. I got so frustrated that I decided to take lessons and learn how to fly one myself. In fact, I owned a hot air balloon for three or four years. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t fast enough; it didn’t give me enough of a rush.
FI: When did you get your first Stearman, and why?
Schayowitz: I had been taking lessons in a Pitts biplane. The Pitts is a high-performance, fully acrobatic plane - small, fast, agile, sexy. You look at a Pitts and you know it’s built for speed and acrobatics. But after spending 30 or 40 hours learning how to fly one of them, I found it just wasn’t that much fun. It was like driving a very high-performance car in stop-and-go traffic. And it was too much to handle.
One day, as I was taking these lessons, I saw a Stearman parked near the ramp. It was an instant sensation. I knew it was the plane for me. It’s definitely clunky. You’re talking about going from something about as high-performance as you can get [that is, the Pitts] to something that’s about as low. The Stearman is 65 years old; it’s old technology; you need to finesse it when you’re flying acrobatics. The Stearman would be your wooden roller coaster; the Pitts would be the modern steel one.
FI: So what’s the attraction?
Schayowitz: It’s the sound of the engine, the smell of the exhaust fumes, the wind in your face, the attention you get when you land at an airport. The Stearman is part of history; every World War II pilot learned how to fly in a Stearman.
I went for a ride in one, and I loved it. I did some research and found a guy in Mississippi who restores them. So I flew down and met with him, and ordered one in late 1987. It took him about a year to rebuild one that he had in his shop. I had about 20 hours experience flying a Stearman when I went down to pick up the plane. He asked if I was going to be OK flying the plane back to New Jersey. I told him I’d call him when I got there. It was a learning experience. In fact, I really learned how to fly it after I bought it.
The Stearman is known as a difficult plane to land. It doesn’t have any forward visibility, it’s underpowered, and it doesn’t have a lot of sophisticated controls to assist in windy conditions.
FI: Did you say "difficult to land?" "No forward visibility?"
Schayowitz: In most planes, the pilot can look straight ahead and see the runway. But the Stearman is called a tail dragger, meaning the nose sits up higher than the pilot. Because the pilot is seated farther back, he can’t see straight ahead. So as you’re landing, you’re sort of looking out the side of the airplane, or you’re flying it in a crab position so you can see where you’re going. And you have to deal with the wind.
FI: Is there anything else we should know about a Stearman before bumming a ride with you?
Schayowitz: Yes. The landing gear is located very close together, so you don’t have a lot of stability. If you don’t land on both wheels at the same time parallel to the runway, you could end up with something called a ground loop. You land on one wheel, the wing tip hits the ground and you spin around. It’s very embarrassing, even though you don’t get hurt.
FI: Have you ever ground-looped your Stearman?
Schayowitz: No. But there’s a saying in the Stearman world: There are two types of Stearman pilots - those who have ground-looped, and those who will.
FI: When – and why – did you begin with aerobatics?
Schayowitz: Aerobatics entailed experiencing forces and visual situations that were a new experience for me. Each of us responds differently to these maneuvers. On my first few flights, I felt queasy and tired after some number of them. But with each flight, I found my tolerance building. As I became comfortable with unusual attitudes and g-forces, the exhilaration and fun began to dominate. Loops, rolls and spins became habit-forming. Hammerheads, Cuban 8s and snap rolls were addicting.
FI: Can you explain some of the maneuvers?
Schayowitz: Imagine a string extended from the tail to the prop; if you were to hold that string at a constant level and spin the plan around that axis - that’s a roll. In a snap roll, instead of staying straight on the axis, the nose deviates off to the side; it’s a very crisp, very definite action; the plane almost looks like it’s cork-screwing, rather than staying straight and level. In the hammerhead, the plane flies straight up until it runs out of speed, then drops to the left or right; as it starts to slide backward, the weight of the engine in the front forces it down. The Cuban 8 looks like a number 8 lying on its side; you start off doing a normal loop and once the plane becomes inverted, you do a half-roll to upright the plane, and then reverse the entire maneuver.
The maneuvers I will not do in a Stearman are negative-g maneuvers. In all my maneuvers, gravity is pushing you down into the seat of the plane (even in a loop, when you’re upside down). A negative-g maneuver tends to throw you out of the plane.
FI: How fast can you go in a Stearman?
Schayowitz: In order to do a loop, you need to enter it at 125 miles per hour. At the top of the loop, you’re down to 45 or 50. Top speed in a Stearman, if you’re pointing it straight down, would be 170. (A Pitts, on the other hand, can go up to 240 or 250.)
FI: How often do you go up?
Schayowitz: Well, I sold my first Stearman in 1993. But when I owned it, I kept it at Somerset Airport - the same place I learned how to fly - which is about a half hour from our house. In New Jersey, you can fly about six months of the year. I would fly three or four times a week. For me, the nicest time to fly is in the evenings, right before sunset. A typical ride for me lasts about an hour. Flying the Stearman is like being on a motorcycle at 100 miles per hour; it’s fatiguing after awhile, because of the wind.
FI: Why did you sell the plane?
Schayowitz: The demands of my new dental career, my family and work consumed all my time.
About 10 years later, in the summer of 2004, I was diagnosed with a potentially fatal brain tumor. I had been having symptoms, where I felt unstable, almost as if I was having vertigo. After going through virtually every test known to man, I was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma – a non-malignant tumor that grows on the cochlear nerve in your head. Traditionally, people have surgery. But I elected to go with radiation - the Gamma Knife procedure. For six months after that, I didn’t have the energy to get up in the morning, though, after missing a couple of weeks, I began working two or three hours a day. I still made phone calls. And I got a lot of support from Benco, and my accounts were understanding. Occasionally, they would even give me a mercy order!
The radiation killed the tumor. Over a 2-year period, there was no growth. So in October 2006, I was declared cured. And having just received a clean bill of health, I headed straight for the airport. And I bought another Stearman.
FI: Where did you find the new plane?
Schayowitz: The guy who restored the first one for me said he was aware of a plane that had been sitting in a barn for umpteen years; it was completely rotted and destroyed, but he had access to it. The wings – which are made of mahogany – had rotted; the fabric covering was destroyed; the engine hadn’t run in 20-plus years. So we put everything on a tractor-trailer and shipped it to his shop, where he completely disassembled it and brought it down to bare metal. I would go down every month and a half to see the progress. And he sent me pictures. I picked it up July 12.
FI: How was the flight back up?
Schayowitz: There was an issue when I landed in Charleston, W.V. The tire blew. First time that has ever happened to me. I wasn’t hurt, but the tire and wheel assembly will have to be replaced. Waiting for parts, I had to take a commercial flight home, and I’ll fly back to pick it up. [FI]
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