# Bill Boisture Ran Gulfstream, NetJets, and Hawker Beechcraft. Now He Advises the Buyers. A fighter pilot turned aviation chief executive who ran Gulfstream and NetJets and steered Hawker Beechcraft through bankruptcy to a 1.4-billion-dollar sale to Textron. Author: J.A. Watte Published: July 7, 2026 Source: https://jwatte.com/blog/bill-boisture-hawker-beechcraft/ --- This is one profile in a set on the operators that AE Industrial Partners hires as its operating partners and senior advisors, the people a private equity firm pays to guide the companies it owns. The pattern behind who gets the seat is laid out in [Built to Be Bought](/blog/built-to-be-bought/). Bill Boisture earned his by running a string of large aircraft companies, one after another. ## The chairs he sat in Boisture was President and Chief Operating Officer of Gulfstream Aerospace and President of NetJets, the world's largest fractional-jet operator, before becoming Chairman and CEO of Hawker Beechcraft on March 23, 2009, per the [Hawker Beechcraft appointment announcement](https://media.txtav.com/195279-hawker-beechcraft-announces-new-chairman-and-ceo-w-w-bill-boisture-jr). Earlier he was Chairman and CEO of Butler Aviation and President of British Aerospace Corporate Jets, a forerunner of the Hawker line, and his [AE Industrial bio](https://www.aeroequity.com/team-member/bill-boisture/) credits him with completing strategic sales of Butler Aviation, British Aerospace Corporate Jets, and Gulfstream. Few people have run that many marquee aviation businesses. ## The hardest job of the set Boisture's tenure at Hawker Beechcraft included the manufacturer's Chapter 11 restructuring, which it filed on May 3, 2012. As the company reorganized, a turnaround chief executive was brought in and Boisture became chairman of the operating subsidiary. The company emerged as Beechcraft, and in December 2013 Textron agreed to buy Beechcraft for about 1.4 billion dollars, per [AviationPros](https://www.aviationpros.com/aircraft-maintenance-technology/aircraft-technology/business-general-aviation/news/11286634/textron-buys-beechcraft-in-14-billion-deal). Running a large aircraft manufacturer into and out of bankruptcy and toward a sale is exactly the kind of hard operating experience a private equity firm values. ## Where he started Before aviation management, Boisture was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot for eleven years, honorably discharged as a major, and a graduate of both the U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School and the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, the program known as Top Gun, per the [Hawker Beechcraft announcement](https://media.txtav.com/195279-hawker-beechcraft-announces-new-chairman-and-ceo-w-w-bill-boisture-jr). He later served as President of the aircraft lessor Intrepid Aviation and as a senior aerospace advisor at The Carlyle Group. He holds a Bachelor of Science in engineering management from the U.S. Air Force Academy and an MBA from the University of New Haven. ## The door he walked through Boisture is the large-operator profile, worn smooth by repetition. He ran Gulfstream, NetJets, and Hawker Beechcraft, and he completed sales of several of the businesses he led. That is why AE Industrial made him a Senior Advisor across its entire portfolio, with board seats at portfolio companies including Alpine Air, Applied Composites, Columbia Helicopters, and Yingling Aviation, per his [AE Industrial bio](https://www.aeroequity.com/team-member/bill-boisture/). A person who has run the biggest names in an industry knows what the companies AE Industrial owns are trying to become. ## Related reading - [Built to Be Bought](/blog/built-to-be-bought/): the full playbook of building a company to be bought and keeping the equity after. - [Paul Fulchino, who sold Aviall to Boeing](/blog/paul-fulchino-aviall-boeing/): a fellow senior advisor who ran and sold a large aerospace business. - [Marc Duvall and the five-billion-dollar division](/blog/marc-duvall-collins-aerostructures/): another large-aerospace operator. - [Gary Mercer, 36 years engineering GE's jet engines](/blog/gary-mercer-ge-aviation/): the engineering-leadership version of the credential. ## Fact-check notes and sources - **President and COO of Gulfstream, President of NetJets, Chairman and CEO of Hawker Beechcraft from March 23, 2009, prior roles at Butler Aviation and British Aerospace Corporate Jets, later President of Intrepid Aviation and senior aerospace advisor at The Carlyle Group, eleven years as a USAF fighter pilot discharged as a major, and his degrees:** the [Hawker Beechcraft appointment announcement](https://media.txtav.com/195279-hawker-beechcraft-announces-new-chairman-and-ceo-w-w-bill-boisture-jr) and his [AE Industrial bio](https://www.aeroequity.com/team-member/bill-boisture/). - **Hawker Beechcraft's Chapter 11 filing on May 3, 2012 and Textron's agreement in December 2013 to buy the renamed Beechcraft for about 1.4 billion dollars:** [AviationPros](https://www.aviationpros.com/aircraft-maintenance-technology/aircraft-technology/business-general-aviation/news/11286634/textron-buys-beechcraft-in-14-billion-deal). Exact tenure years for the Gulfstream, NetJets, Butler, and British Aerospace roles, and deal values for the sales his bio credits to him, are not disclosed in the sources found. *This post is informational and journalistic, describing publicly reported people, companies, and transactions. It is not investment, tax, legal, or M&A advice. All parties are discussed from public records and their own published statements as nominative fair use, with no affiliation implied and nothing endorsed by them.* --- Canonical HTML: https://jwatte.com/blog/bill-boisture-hawker-beechcraft/ RSS: https://jwatte.com/feed.xml JSON Feed: https://jwatte.com/feed.json Hero image: https://jwatte.com/images/bill-boisture-hawker-beechcraft.webp