We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ron Lee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ron thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers

In 2009 we received a call from an intern at a large LA/NY-based advertising and branding firm. They wanted to know if we could provide 100 skydivers for a product introduction project. We asked a lot of important questions, none of which the intern could answer. It took a while, but we finally got them to transfer us to manager of the ad account. It turned out they wanted the skydivers as a part of a t-Mobile branding and activation account where they were going to announce a new cell phone. Kicker – they wanted all 100 skydivers in freefall at the same time, over San Francisco’s Embarcadero. And, we had 26 days to make it happen.

This was a monumental undertaking, and we made it happen. Five airplanes, four separate landing areas along the Embarcadero, (from Justin Herman Plaza to Marina Greet), and we live-streamed to broadcast stations on either end of the four landing areas. The FAA became an important partner in the project, actually shutting down all air traffic over San Fransciso for 30 minute while our aircraft climbed to jump altitude and the jump took place. This is still the largest demonstration jump on record for any US metropolitan area.

Ron, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started skydiving in 1982. I made my first jump with a friend I worked with at Sea World. Little did I know, I got hooked on the thrill and challenge of jumping. In 1984 I worked as ground crew for a guy who did demonstration jumps into high schools as part of their Homecoming festivities, and realized that I could get paid to do what I loved.

I started Skydiving Innovations in 1986 with my then-girlfriend, now-wife. She ran the ground crews, and I performed the jumps with buddies I had learned to skydive with. in 1988, a group of Navy SEALs who had been members of the US Navy Leap Frogs Parachute Team came to us and suggested that we used them for the ever-growing number of very technical and high-visibility “demo jumps” the team was performing for corporate events. Looking back, it was an extraordinary gift to have some of the best demonstration jumpers in the world ask to join our small commercial parachute team. While I perform on most of our skydiving shows, since 1988 Skydiving Innovations has been staffed primarily by these incredibly gifted SEALs and Special Boat Team professionals from Naval Special Warfare.

The vast majority of the shows we now perform are for corporate special events and the marketing and branding efforts of our clients. As the name of our company implies, innovation is at the heart of our business, our culture and our services. We are most effective when our clients challenge us to serve as a branding and activation element for their marketing efforts, and leveraging technology is a significant part of that.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When Covid-19 hit, every bit of business was canceled because everyone canceled their live corporate events. Instead, our clients began to host online events via Zoom and other webinar platforms. Thankfully, for the past ten years we had been developing, refining and using a system that would allow us to stream live aerial HD video and audio from our jumpers’ cameras to ground stations, where it could then be deployed to screens at the event, and, more importantly, to our Client’s social media properties. This put online viewers “in the aircraft and on the jump with us”, adding a thriling personal element to the online meetings. The key was the long-distance, high-definition capability of our systems, and our expertise in live-streaming to remote platforms. During the height of the Covid pandemic, we performed for quite a few of our Client’s online events – enough to make it through until the live-event industry recovered.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Successfully marketing your business to grow your Client base is probably one of the hardest things a business owner ever has to do. Especially now. For us, digital marketing never works, mostly because we are such a niche business. And trying to market to individual companies that are hosting outdoor corporate events is extremely time-consuming and expensive. More than 25 years ago, we realized that becoming an entertainment service offering for companies that are in the business of organizing corporate meetings and events was the way to go. These meeting planners became our sales channel. San Diego is a major corporate event destination, so working with destination management companies was a natural fit: we offer unique entertainment, and they are always looking for unique and compelling entertainment to offer to their Clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://skydivinginnovations.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skydivinginnovations/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skydivinginnovations
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-lee-4172466
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/skyinnovations
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/skydivinginnovations

Image Credits
Photo credit: Ron Lee, JC Ledbetter, Joe Jennings, Brian Binder