Ed launched Seair Technologies, Inc. in February, 2002. He's put his heart and soul into this company. This page will show you a few pictures of what Seair is up to, and how Seair has affected our life (like why we were living in Illinois!)

 

 

The Seair Story

In January 1999, Ed attended the Seattle Boat show after seeing a commercial featuring a 'flying boat'. He took one look at this thing and fell in love. In February, he decided to purchase one, and went to Florida for training. He was already certified as an ultralight instructor, so it only took him a few hours to get certified for this new weight-shift water ultraight. His brand new "Seair 2000 Flying Boat" was delivered to our house in April, 1999 and Ed had his first flight in his very own flying boat shortly after.

In the end of June, Ed got a call from the owners of the Seair company asking for his help. Their pilot (who had trained Ed) had quit and they were desperate for another trained pilot. They had made a deal with a syndicated kids TV show to feature the Seair Flying Boat in one of their shows, and they needed a stunt pilot to do the flying. Needless to say, within two days Ed had packed his stuff in his car, and was headed off to Orlando! Ed and his brother Mike made the drive from Seattle to Orlando in 57 hours - and not because the had to but because the wanted to. Needless to say, Kathy was not happy with this, but thankfully God protects fools and small children.

Ed did the flying for the "Critter Gitters" episode entitled "Florida Manatee Mission". If you click on the picture of the video cover, you can actually purchase this video! Ed even has is credited at the end of the movie as 'stunt pilot'. Ed did some awesome flying for this film, and we still show it to people, even though it features the old Seair boat.

Ed stayed in Orlando working with the owners of the company, helping them make improvements to the boat's design. Seems the owners were mostly motorcycle people, and now that they didn't have a pilot on staff they were glad to get Ed's input.

At some point in the fall, Ed decided to purchase the company. He wanted to make changes to the flying boat design and had lots of ideas for improvements. He moved to Florida in January of 2000 to start the transition, and in June 2000 he officially formed Seair, LLC.

In August, 2000 Ed's dad became sick with cancer. In order to spend time with his dad, Ed decided to move the company back to Seattle. He moved back here in the fall of 2000 and worked on the design for the 'new and improved' Seair Flying Boat. Unfortunatelyt for us, Ed's dad passed away in October and Ed spent a lot of time at his mom's house helping her out.

During that fall, Ed also met Kurt Peterson over the internet. Kurt had designed a product that Ed that was very cool, and he flew to Illinois to meet Kurt. The two of them hit it off and decided to merge their businesses into Seair Technologies, Inc. In February 2001 the company was formed in Wilmington, IL. Kurt has seven children and couldn't relocate to Washington, so our new 'home' became Illinois! Ed moved to Wilmington full time in the spring of 2001. Kathy had to stay behind until she could 'afford' to leave her job at Expedia.com.

In May, 2001 Ed finally launched the new and improved Seair Flying Boat. He basically redesigned the entire boat. About the only thing not changed from the original boat were the seats. The new boat was introduced at Sun-N-Fun in Florida and was a big hit.

One of the coolest things that Seair has done was to be featured on The Today Show in May and June, 2001. The Flying Boat was featured in a segment by Corey Greenburg (the Gadget Guy). Originally Ed was featured flying on the show in a segment showing the coolest beach toys. He got to fly at Club Med in Florida for this segment. But, when a senator defected and disrupted the power in the senate, he was bumped from the East Coast and Midwest. So, The Today Show invited him to come back in June for the segment on cool Father's Day presents. He didn't fly for this one, but it was a ton of fun going to the plaza and watching behind the scenes at the show. Ed and Kathy got to go to New York along with Mike Fish (Seair Flying Instructor and boat owner) and be at the plaza for the show. And, we got the best picture of Ed with Matt Lauer!!! 

Over the rest of the year Ed and Kurt (along with Mike, Ed R., and Mark) worked on selling flying boats, and Seair's newest products - the Seair Hovercraft and the Seair Sport Boat. Ed and Kurt have designed an awesome hovercraft and if we can just get that first customer signed, we'll be a much bigger company!

In April 2002, K,athy decided it was time to move to Illinois to be with Ed full time. That darn long distance relationship stuff sucks!! Although she loved her job at Expedia it was definitely an adventure to move and start over in a new place. We bought a home in Wilmington, IL and lived here until this last March (2004). We finally moved back to our home in Maple Valley.

So that's the 'backstory' on Seair. For more technical information, pictures, videos, and other fun stuff, check out Seair's Web Site at http://www.seair.com, or click on the picture on the right to go directly to the Flyingt Boat multimedia.