Team Member Spotlight - Clayton Corn
Director of Sales and Acquisitions, Clayton Corn, still gets excited recalling his first flight in a small plane. “I was maybe 8 or 10 years old. It was our neighbor’s Cessna 210. Dad was riding in the back seat. It was right after sunrise and I remember looking out the window at the tire right outside my door as it lifted off the pavement. I watched our silhouette separate from us and get smaller as we climbed into the air.” It was the most exhilarating thing he’d ever experienced up to that point, “and I guess I’m still chasing that feeling,” he says with a grin.
Clay (his friends call him Clay) has chased that feeling all over the world, not as a pilot, but on stage as a musician. He is regarded as one of the best piano players to come out of the Texas country music scene. He’s played and toured with some of the biggest names in music from the late 90’s through the 2000s. He’s made appearances on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Good Morning America, and the CMAs to name a few, and he’s recorded on several notable records. He remains a voting member of the GRAMMYs.
A native of the Texas panhandle, Clay moved to Nashville in 1998. He’d kept a keen interest in aviation through the years and had flown with a few buddies, but getting his license was always something he’d do “someday” when touring and life in general slowed down. But after the events of 9/11 he thought the bar to get a pilot certificate might be raised so as to put it out of reach for an ordinary guy like him, so in early 2002, before the FAA might have had a chance to raise that bar, Clay started flight training at Nashville International and within a few months he’d earned his wings.
Flying only occasionally as a hobby, his travels and circumstances brought him back to Texas where he started a family and launched a company that produces large events. Clayton Corn Event Partners, which became Craftsmen Events, has produced several notable events in and around the Austin region, including Greg Abbott’s gubernatorial victory party, some of the largest faith-based events the city has ever hosted, the Go Wheels Up airshow at the San Marcos Regional Airport, and he’s worked with the Salvation Army and other charities to produce events that have raised millions to support homeless and displaced women and children throughout central Texas.
Then, like it did so many others, Covid swept through the entertainment industry. Clay had been contemplating a change of direction for a while, but when large public gatherings became a pariah, he decided it was time to chase not just another dream, but his first dream.
With a few hundred hours in his logbook and glut of unanticipated downtime, Clay set to work collecting ratings. Also, somewhere in the annals of the past few years, he had been introduced to Ross, founder of APEX Flight Solutions, and the two had become fast friends. Looking to see if there might be any opportunities in the aviation world for someone of his skillset, and now holding a multi-engine-commercial certificate, Clay reached out to Ross. With Clay’s knowledge of aviation, endless curiosity, affability, and skill at putting together and selling large, successful projects, Ross offered Clay the opportunity to launch the sales and acquisitions arm of APEX, a move Ross had been contemplating for some time; he just needed to find the right man for the job.
In the subsequent months, APEX has closed several brokerage deals, but Clay’s role in the company has also broadened as the company pushes towards bringing a portion of its fleet online for part 135 charter service. He has also been instrumental in developing new proprietary tools and services for APEX clients, many of which will be rolled out in the coming new year.
When asked about such a dramatic change of direction from what he had been doing for the last two-and-a-half decades, Clay just smiles… “I gotta say, I’m having more fun now than I can ever remember having in the entertainment world. I love that Ross & company are open to some outside-the-box ideas, and that they’ve afforded me the opportunity to move into a new phase with my life and career. I’m looking forward to helping build what I see as a very bright future for this team, and I’m just thankful beyond words to be a part of it.”
On any given day you might find Clay flying right seat in the Hawker, Merlin, or Citation; in his office working on a new APEX product or the next big brokerage deal; or on a stage somewhere playing keyboard for Radney Foster or Pat Green. Wherever he is, he’s probably thinking about airplanes, and he’s ready to get you in the air too.