Dogs, Pigs, Muddy Tires Led DeVault to Arkansas

She had a dog named Alice and an obsession with pigs.

It must have been fate.

Lynn DeVault had been recruited by billionaire Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton to move to Arkansas — land of the Razorbacks — and work for Llama Co., Walton’s investment banking firm.

In 1994, DeVault left Atlanta, where she was senior vice president for corporate finance at SunTrust Securities, and moved to Northwest Arkansas. She served as chief operating officer for Llama Co. until 1998, when she was named CEO.

Now, DeVault, who lives in Rogers, splits her time between Llama Holding Co.’s office in downtown Fayetteville and Ozark Aircraft Systems’ office at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill.

DeVault serves on the OAS board (along with five others) and spends more time at the OAS offices since Walton moved to Texas last year.

OAS was the first business at the new airport, which opened in 1998, and is still the largest with 477 employees (primarily engineers and mechanics).

OAS provides aircraft services — including engineering, modification and maintenance — for a variety of aircraft. The employee-owned company custom builds interiors for a several airplanes, including Boeing business jets and Airbus 319 CJs.

Strong work ethic

DeVault, now 50, grew up in Bristol, Tenn., a city of 23,421 (by the time of the 1990 census) on the Virginia border in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

DeVault’s parents allowed her time to play, but they made sure she also studied. After school, DeVault had free time and usually rode her horses until 7 p.m., when dinner was served. After that, it was time to hit the books.

DeVault’s parents allowed her one hour per day of television, but she seldom watched TV during her childhood. She was too busy reading and “trying to better myself.”

“I’m not tempted to go and waste my time,” she says. “My friends tell me I don’t have enough fun. I really love what I do. My work has become my hobby.”

DeVault’s stepfather ran Tipton Construction Co., a water and sewer construction business. He would drive her to school in a bright yellow Checker station wagon with the company name on the door.

“I was sort of embarrassed by this,” she says. “He would drop me off at school and the car had mud on its wheels.

“I saw my family work. I would go into the office every morning with my stepfather, and he would send out the crews to the job.”

DeVault says she had great respect for her family, but she knew as a child that she wanted to go to college and have a professional job.

“When I was in school, women didn’t have as many alternatives as they do now,” she says.

Growing up, DeVault was interested in math as well as reading.

“My learning style is really to analyze,” she says. “I’m an old-fashioned person. I like to read a newspaper. I don’t like to watch television. I like the act of reading.”

If she had to pick a childhood hero, DeVault says, it would have to be her grandmother because she taught DeVault to appreciate books.

Career change

Planning to be a school teacher, DeVault majored in math and science at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She also went through a period in the 1960s when she enjoyed making wooden toys with power tools and selling them out of her Volkswagen van at crafts fairs.

DeVault received her bachelor’s degree from UT in 1971. In 1973, she earned a master’s degree in mathematics from Emory University in Atlanta.

From 1971 to 1976, DeVault taught math and science at DeKalb County Schools in Atlanta. At the same time, she served as coach for the co-ed swimming team and for the girls’ track team.

DeVault became the youngest department chairwoman in the school and was promoted to assistant principal.

She was 24 years old.

“I looked around and said, ‘Is this all there is to this?'”

Looking for a more challenging position, DeVault spoke to a banker who was the father of one of her students. He advised her to interview at Trust Company Bank, which later became part of SunTrust. She did and in 1976 landed a job as a trainee. DeVault remained there, ultimately as a banking officer, until 1978.

“They taught me how to be a banker, how to sell financial service products,” DeVault says. “It wasn’t long before I got lured off to New York because that’s where the real bankers were.”

DeVault worked for Security Pacific National Bank in New York from 1978 to 1980, leaving as vice president of the merchant banking group to return to SunTrust

DeVault says she was happier in her new position. Projects had a beginning and an ending, she says. “School just keeps going on.”

Homesick for the South, DeVault returned to Atlanta and SunTrust in 1980 as a vice president for Trust Company Bank. At the time, banks were just getting into the investment business, so she and two others founded the company’s corporate finance group. DeVault rose through the ranks there to become senior vice president of SunTrust Securities Inc. by 1990.

“It was a great benefit to sort of be there from the beginning,” she says. “It was building a business from the ground up.”

In 1993, a corporate headhunter called DeVault and informed her that Walton was interested in talking to her about a job. It took Walton almost a year to convince DeVault to move to Northwest Arkansas to serve as senior managing director of Llama Co.

“I was real hesitant about coming to Arkansas,” she says. “I had never been to Arkansas. We talked for a long time about my coming out here. I eventually showed up in March of 1994.”

DeVault was promoted to chief operating officer in 1996 and CEO in 1998.

DeVault says she’s gotten used to the area and doesn’t want to leave. She enjoys the small-town atmosphere and bumping into people she knows on the street.

“I love it here,” she says. “It’s been a really good experience.”

DeVault says more women are becoming CEOs, and they’re bringing different management talents to those positions.

“It used to be that CEOs were very dictatorial,” she says. “People have to want to work for you. Otherwise, they’ll go to work for someone else. … You really need to use positive reinforcement to get things done.”

OAS

DeVault says Walton knew a new airport was essential for Northwest Arkansas’ economic health.

“Statistics will show you that, if an area has an airport, it will thrive,” DeVault says. “If it doesn’t have an airport, it won’t thrive.”

Owned by its employees and Walton as a shareholder, OAS set up operations last March at the new airport.

The company has since landed several noteworthy clients for its jet modification business — from a Saudi Arabian prince to Legend Airlines, which plans to begin operations from Dallas’ Love Field in February.

In the airline maintenance sector, OAS’ primary customers are American Airlines and International Lease Finance Corp., the largest owner of airplanes that are leased to airlines. As the North American maintenance provider for ILFC, OAS will do maintenance on 30 planes for the company this year.

Often airplanes in for modification will also undergo maintenance at the same time.

OAS modifies narrow-body aircraft. Currently, the company is working on two Boeing business jets, four Boeing 737s and two Boeing 767s

Dennis Davis came on as CEO of Ozark Aircraft Systems in November.

DeVault says corporate jet modification seemed like a good business to start in Northwest Arkansas.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist,” she says. “The corporate jet market — the VIP jet market — is huge. Many companies that have far-flung operations have corporate airplanes. … The real reason behind the company is local investors wanted to promote the area.”

OAS currently has three 57,000-SF hangars at the airport, valued at about $5.5 million each (not including the equipment they house), according to public records. The company plans to build another four hangars over the next decade.

A dog’s life

Not only did DeVault have a dog named Alice when Alice Walton first called her about a job, the 60-pound German short-hair pointer was the same breed of dog raised by the late Sam Walton, Alice Walton’s father.

In addition to the pointer, DeVault has a small, white dog (a bichon frise) named Ralph. Ralph has a dog bed in the corner of DeVault’s office for his occasional trips to Fayetteville. There, among his chew toys, is a small stuffed white llama.

The two dogs, collectively, are known as “The Honeymooners” after the characters in the Jackie Gleason television show from the 1950s.

DeVault says she plans to stay in Northwest Arkansas until she retires. Then she may go back to teaching just to keep herself busy.

“You can’t go full speed ahead for 29 years and just stop,” she says.