Steve Jobs once said of Apple that the genius of business success was to invent products would-be buyers didn’t know they needed. Apple succeeds brilliantly at this, but the advice applies equally to airplanes. He who stands still and treads water will soon wither. Even small companies must innovate and move forward and our editor’s choice for the top company doing that this year is CubCrafters, the scrappy taildragger manufacturer based in Yakima, Washington.
As detailed in the story, “Cub Crafters’ XCub” in this issue, CubCrafters has cannily plied the Cub-type aircraft niche to not only stay in business, but to prosper with modest growth.