Magellan Jets president opens his company’s first private terminal at Hanscom

KPMG kicks off effort to tackle health disparities; GE exec gets a fast ride powered by GE jet engines; Analysts say farewell to Rockland Trust chief; Real estate shop hires BC athlete as brand ambassador.

Magellan Jets president Anthony Tivnan.Chris Morris

Magellan Jets has reached a new cruising altitude now that the Quincy private jet company has opened its first terminal, at Hanscom Field.

President Anthony Tivnan said Magellan picked the Bedford airport for a 5,300-square-foot private terminal because of its proximity to the headquarters and the volume of activity the company, which provides charter and jet-card services, has in the Boston market. He said the terminal offers a hotel lounge experience for flyers with amenities such as a bar, a conference room, and designated parking.

The opening coincides with Magellan’s launch of an aircraft sales and management division; the company expects to use the terminal in part to showcase aircraft that owners list with Magellan for sale.

Tivnan started Magellan with two business partners, Joshua Hebert and Greg Belezerian, in 2008 during the Great Recession; they continue to manage the nearly 70-person company today, and have not yet taken on outside investors. The company does not use its own planes or crews, but operates as an intermediary that connects travelers with the private jets they need.

Fifteen years after Magellan’s founding, Tivnan said he’s prepared for the likelihood of another recession. It’s a good time to be expanding, he said, particularly if companies try to save money by jettisoning corporate jets and turn to charter service. Magellan saw a record $120 million in revenue last year and expects that number to grow in 2023.

“What happens in a recessionary period, people want to get ‘asset light,’ " Tivnan said. “When aircraft owners begin to do that, they’re not going to go from owning their own private jet to jumping on Southwest. They’re going to look for a more cost-effective way to [fly private].”

The COVID-19 pandemic rattled the company initially, Tivnan said, but Magellan soon found opportunities amid travelers who wanted to avoid commercial flights because of the health risk.

At 42, Tivnan has been in the aviation business for 21 years — essentially his entire adult life. He went from high school to pilot school, but decided not to pursue a career in flying. Instead, he launched a private jet startup with Hebert (his cousin), and a handful of others. They eventually sold their equity in that startup before launching Magellan.

“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a rocky road at first,” Tivnan said. “[But] it’s definitely humbling to sit here today in this private terminal, and to be able to have a brand and enough customers to merit this . . . Every time I hear the engines firing up and smell the jet fuel, I’m like a little kid who looks up at the sky every time a plane goes by. It does not get old.”

A logo sits on display outside the offices of KPMG LLP in the Canary Wharf business and shopping district in London, UK.Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

KPMG aims to collaborate on health equity

Martin Luther King Jr. famously once said that of all forms of discrimination, “injustice in health is the most shocking and inhuman.”

So it made sense to check in with accounting and consulting giant KPMG on Martin Luther King Day about the firm’s quiet new effort in Boston to address health inequities here, and across the state.

Sheila Harrington, the firm’s health industry leader for New England and upstate New York, said KPMG has convened two dinners in recent weeks with various stakeholders to begin a community conversation about health inequities. Among the participants so far: reps from Boston Medical Center, Takeda, and Boston Children’s Hospital, as well as MassBio chief Kendalle Burlin O’Connell, Kenn Turner of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, MassMEDIC president Brian Johnson, and Michael Curry of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers.

The hope is to share best practices that are already in place, while brainstorming new ones. The participants are planning a broader symposium on the issue in May or June, to be hosted by KPMG and MassBio.

“These issues have been around a long time,” Harrington said. “There are a lot of individual ideas being batted around. The power is to get all those people in the same room.”

GE exec takes fighter flight

Ride into the danger zone?

There aren’t many Boston-area executives who get to hitch a ride in a fighter jet. But then there aren’t many who also happen to be a top gun at a company that makes jet engines.

And so it was that Carolina Dybeck Happe, chief financial officer at General Electric, was visiting her native country of Sweden for the holidays when she stopped by a Saab test facility to get an up-close look at one of the fighter jets that GE powers, the Saab Gripen, as she recounted on her LinkedIn page.

Her visit played out like a scene from “Top Gun: Maverick” — without Tom Cruise, or enemy fire. Her Gripen flight required far more preparation than a standard business trip, including a “pilot equipment fitting” and a flight simulation.

“The peak of the day, though, was of course when I took my place in the cockpit and we took flight,” she wrote. “G-forces of 7 (limit for passengers), supersonic speed (>Mach 1) as well as >30K feet now have a very different and IRL meaning to me . . . I thoroughly enjoyed it . . . I especially appreciated the ceremony [after] the flight!”

No word on whether Kenny Loggins was blaring from the speakers during that ceremony.

Rockland CEO will be missed by the market

As an analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading, Laurie Havener Hunsicker can be a tough critic of bank chief executives.

But she couldn’t help but gush a bit in her most recent report on Independent Bank Corp., aka Rockland Trust.

That’s because it was the last quarterly earnings report with Chris Oddleifson as the chief executive. The bank announced he is stepping down, at age 64, on Feb. 6, to be replaced by Jeffrey Tengel, most recently an executive at M&T Bank. Oddleifson will remain on the bank board until mid-2023.

She called Oddleifson’s surprise retirement a “big loss for the bank and for shareholders,” citing the bank’s steady growth under his watch as CEO from a sleepy South Shore community bank to one of the biggest in New England. “We will remember him as one of our favorite bank CEOs, and frankly wish he were staying involved on the board beyond 2023,” she added. “Without a doubt, Mr. Oddleifson’s departure leaves big shoes to fill.”

Boston College's Belle Smith, left, drives against Maryland's Maddie Sanzhez in the first half of an NCAA Division I women's lacrosse national semifinal, on May 27, 2022, in Baltimore. Boston real estate firm Senné has signed an NIL-sponsorship deal with Smith.Steve Ruark/for the Boston Globe

Senné steps into college sponsorship deal

The “Name, Image and Likeness” business is still new on college campuses, but Boston real estate firm Senné figures now is as good a time as ever to take a shot at it.

The firm has signed an NIL-sponsorship deal with Belle Smith, a star lacrosse player in her junior year at Boston College. The deal was inked last summer but is being announced now, coinciding with the start of the 2023 lacrosse season. Founder William Senné is a BC alum and his firm sponsors BC college athletics. He has found it helpful for his team to brainstorm marketing ideas with Smith. She will be a brand ambassador for Senné, which rents a number of apartments near BC, and will promote the firm to her 15,000 Instagram followers. (Financial terms were not disclosed.)

Smith is among hundreds of BC athletes taking advantage of NIL opportunities, according to athletic director Blake James, since the NCAA started allowing them in 2021. They include traditional endorsements as well as camps and clinics, and promoting charities. Other local companies that have partnered with BC athletes include McGovern Auto Group, Dunkin’, and Crazy Dough’s Pizza.

For Smith, the NCAA rule change coincided perfectly with her team’s national championship win in 2021. She has also inked NIL deals with Boston Motorsports and retailer Lacrosse Unlimited.

“The timing of my team’s success really worked in my favor,” Smith said. “I was lucky to be a part of it.”