When state government agencies determine they have equipment that is obsolete or no longer meets its mission, they call on the State Surplus Property Agency to dispose of it.
By dispose, of course, we don’t mean merely haul to the dump. While State Surplus does sometimes sell bulk lots for scrap, its managers often disagree with those who are convinced that goods have little value.
In fact, we were pretty sure that one item might return nearly a half-million dollars to state coffers – even though it was not in, shall we say, top-flight condition.
A case in point was a 1969 Canadair CL215 fire suppression airplane formerly used by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). It had been grounded since May 2008 because there was no funding for an estimated $1.5 million needed for repair and FAA-required maintenance.
A May 2010 report from the Program Evaluation Division concluded its sale was “unlikely to provide any proceeds because there is a limited market for this aircraft.” State Surplus disagreed.
The agency tends to find greater exposure within niche markets by placing high-ticket items on eBay, where the plane was posted with a minimum bid of $250,000. Stan Black, manager for Special Sales & Contracts, worked closely with DENR to collect pictures, maintenance logs, operational data, parts information, and the aircraft history. Armed with these and other technical resources, Black both created the eBay posting and marketed it directly with aviation companies, nationally and internationally.
Bidding began on March 20 with a $250,000 offer then inched up to $285,000. Thirty-five of the total 43 bids were placed in the last 25 minutes on March 30, with the winning bid of $445,099 coming from Buffalo Airways of Yellowknife, Northwest Territory, Canada.
Thanks to Black’s exhaustive upfront work and DENR’s cooperation, the buyer purchased the plane sight unseen. They will fly a team to Hickory to perform necessary maintenance and repairs, then fly it 5,000 miles to its new home.
Black, meanwhile, is busy researching his next online project. Thanks to his creativity and dedication, he has sold more than $813,635 in state surplus goods via eBay in the last 60 days while also creating several recycling contracts that are projected to return more than $1 million to the state each year.
