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Airline Pilot Finds New Horizons

Tribune Photo by CANDACE C. MUNDY

Stephen Viders, president of Beyond Bulbs, a business that specializes in emergency equipment, safety, tactical, and homeland security products, displays some of the many items that he sells.

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By ELAINE MARKOWITZ

Tribune correspondent

Published: June 3, 2008

Updated:

WESTCHASE - Stephen Viders does not run short on dreams.

The 37-year-old Jet Blue captain said he likes challenges and is accustomed to pushing himself physically and mentally to stretch his personal horizons.

Flying a plane was a childhood dream as early as age 3, when Viders and his father, Arthur Viders, often drove from their home in Town 'N Country to Tampa International Airport to watch planes take off and land.

In his teens, the aviation aficionado became a licensed pilot and began moving up the ladder from small planes to cargo planes to passenger jets.

Viders, who lives in Westchase with his wife and daughter, said he came on board with Jet Blue in 2000, when the airline was almost new.

"I was No. 120," he said, "and now there are 2,100 pilots."

The drive of his earlier years to pilot a plane, though, has since diminished.

"I'm a senior captain now," he said, "so there's not much further I can go there."

He thus began seeking new challenges when not in the air. That search first led to a volunteer job with the sheriff's office and then, as the result of working with deputies, to his own business.

In business, he said, the possibilities for a career are unending and exciting.

His introduction to law enforcement began several years ago, when he volunteered in the Citizen Patrol program of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

Volunteers work in a number of divisions, Viders said, but he was interested in crime prevention.

"We augment the deputies in nonconfrontational events," he said.

The volunteers, who rotate shifts, check vacation homes, act as first responders in accidents and do neighborhood patrols, among other tasks.

Riding with a deputy one night, Viders noticed the tools of the trade and was taken aback.

"They were still using old-school equipment," he said of the deputies. "I looked at their flashlights and thought they were awful."

Viders, familiar with aviation technology, knew about more sophisticated lighting. In particular, he liked the light-emitting diode technology, called LED, an efficient and high-powered system of lights for multiple purposes in homes and businesses.

"Police traditionally carried small, incandescent bulb flashlights on their belts," he said. "I had seen better lights at aviation trade shows and wondered about their usability with the sheriff's office."

Thus, in 2005, Beyond Bulbs was born, a business specializing in tactical lighting as well as protective and emergency gear. Located in two rooms in a small building off Hutchison and Ehrlich roads, the enterprise grew methodically, step by step. Viders first wanted to determine specific needs in police work.

"I asked a lot of questions to figure out what a police officer would want in a duty belt flashlight," he said.

With their answers, he went about finding solutions.

"I did research on designing my own flashlight," he said. "I talked with engineering and tooling firms to help come up with a design."

He said he next sat down with a graphic designer, Web designer and copy editor to select a name for the new business. The editor suggested Beyond Bulbs, a name that no longer covers the burgeoning business.

"The flashlight business got saturated quickly," Viders said. "We decided to broaden the horizons into a full-fledged safety equipment-law enforcement equipment company."

Products are marketed to law enforcement firms and correctional institutions across the country, as well as to national and international companies.

Included in top-selling items are high-powered flashlights of all sizes, smoke-protection hoods that provide 30 minutes of filtered air, defibrillators, searchlights, night-vision binoculars, smoke alarms, battery-operated road flares and Viders' own creation, emergency kits marked by shiny florescent stripes. The brightly marked bags are easily located in packed police car trunks.

Smoke-protection hoods have been particularly marketable and cover a range of clients, including families buying them for their children going off to college, yacht owners and multistory companies in the United States and Europe. Hoods range from $70 to $125 apiece.

Although the list seems endless, Viders focuses on quality and efficiency in all the products he sells.

"I spent hours with design firms to come up with the qualities I wanted," he said.

"We are solution-based," he said of his business, which includes three others who work for him. "I want to be known as the place to go when someone needs help."

The pilot is not about to give up flying, he said, but his two loves sometimes conflict when he's traveling.

Based at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Viders said he "flies all over the system," which includes much of the country. Sometimes he has time to kill in a hotel room.

"There's nothing like doing your own thing and running your own business," he said, "but as long as I have my laptop and my BlackBerry, I'm good to go."

For information, go to beyondbulbs.com or call (813) 391-5650.

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