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May
18
2026
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Posted 13 hours ago ago by Admin
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Way back in 1965, a mop-top band from Liverpool was singing their new #1 hit, “Ticket to Ride,” to fans on both sides of the pond. That same magical year, a man far less famous than John, Paul, George and Ringo—Elling Halvorson—began selling tickets to ride on his Grand Canyon helicopter tours. Those hot tickets have been snatched up by so many fans over the decades, that the tour operator that Halvorson founded, Papillon Helicopters, has become the #1 helicopter tour operator, not only on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but over the entire world.
Papillon Helicopters’ fleet of 44 helicopters, 16 airplanes, and hundreds of employees safely fly approx. 300,000 fans per year to experience the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, Valley of Fire, Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and of course, Papillon’s “lit” hometown of Las Vegas.
U.S. Marine
“Papillon” is French for “butterfly,” but the man leading it is no lightweight. Curiously, CEO and President Jake Tomlin, began his career in 2013 at Papillon not knowing how huge his new employer was in the helicopter world. He mainly knew of the company as a respected utility/construction operator. Indeed, Papillon has its roots in Grand Canyon pipeline construction and approx. 10% of its mission are utility related. The remaining 90% are tours.
There’s a good reason for Tomlin’s initial ignorance. Before he signed on with Papillon, he was committed to his previous aviation organization—the U.S. Marines as an F/A-18 jet pilot. He served in that military branch (once a Marine, always a Marine) since graduating from the United States Naval Academy in 2002.
That graduation year placed him to eventually fly his jet in some regions that were definitely not for tourists. “I’d cruise along at 10,000 feet over Iraq, on an ISR mission with no intent to engage kinetically, and the rotary-wing pilots battling below me would land at base with bullet holes in their tail rotors and everything. I’d think, God bless these guys; it’s all about supporting them and the ground effort!”
Yet, Tomlin says he was also blessed. “In regards to deploying and operating, there’s no other group I’d rather work with than the Marines. I’m so passionate about my military service that I really have to hold back when talking to young people because I don’t want to talk them into serving. It’s best if it’s a personal calling.”
Steeped in Service
Tomlin’s calling was heard in his hometown of Kirkland, Washington, a Seattle suburb. The son of a nurse mom and physician father, he was steeped in service. “Mom would serve on church worship teams and Dad led Bible studies and treated less fortunate patients for free,” Tomlin recalls. “I’d ask them why they did all this extra work and they’d tell me life wasn’t all about what we want for ourselves; God blessed us to serve others.” Tomlin’s willingness to serve was noticed by his peers. “I seemed to always be volunteered by classmates to serve on student government projects,” he says. This drive to serve was also boosted by athletics. He says, “In school, I loved playing team sports. I’ve always been fascinated by teamwork.”
With that foundation of action and purpose—and with both of his grandfathers and his dad having served in the Marine Corps, Tomlin was well on his way to a life of service and team-building. After 11 years of post-academy military service, he did not take the usual civilian career path for a self-described “jet guy” (whose teen son is named Jet). “I looked at the airlines, but what I really loved in the Marines was being on an active team—organizing and leading operations from the mechanics to the flight crew, more than the actual flying itself,” Tomlin says. “That gave me the opportunity to mentor people and make a difference in their lives. Sometimes, I even was put in the position of giving marriage advice. Working directly with people and motivating them was more rewarding to me than being a pilot.”
Family Team
Where and how would he find such people to motivate after he was discharged? The overlooked answer came calling when Papillon’s CEO, Brenda Halvorson, began recruiting her clueless in-law. You see, Tomlin’s wife was called Katie Halvorson before she married. Lest you think Pilot Tomlin married for his career, this nugget may disabuse that notion: Jake and Katie began dating in high school. “We got married young and marrying her has been the hands-down greatest accomplishment of my life,” Tomlin says. “She is a force multiplier and there’s no way I could do what I do without her. She has brought stability to my life and been with me through my little successes and also failures.”
If you still think teen Tomlin was setting Future Jake up for life, you clearly don’t remember how short-sighted teens are! In fact, Katie was almost as clueless as her husband about the family business as she thought her grandfather’s company mainly did construction. But Brenda knew what was up—Papillon’s flight hours—and she needed to find more help for the growth that was occurring.
Tomlin didn’t realize it at the time, but Brenda and her executive team really targeted him during his last couple of years in the military. “Looking back, she and her executive team had been assessing me in social and informal situations. Katie and I met them for dinner one time in Quantico, Virginia, and Brenda was bouncing our one-year-old daughter, Olivia, on her knee while her team talked to me about my military life. I didn’t think anything of it, but I guess that was my first interview; they were feeling me out.”
Baby Olivia (who’s about to graduate from high school—time flies), must have passed that knee-bouncing, because Brenda and her team “happened” to next see Tomlin in San Diego. The CEO got more serious and directly asked him what he wanted to do in his fast-approaching civilian career. “I answered that I wanted to work in aviation on the business side.” He had just earned his MBA at the San Diego chapter of Phoenix University with the intent to take his new master’s back to Seattle to find a job in that city’s aerospace industry. (Hello Boeing!) Then, Ms. Halvorson addressed ball to glove and made her closing pitch: Papillon was growing and needed another manager; she offered the former Marine a business role at Papillon. Despite expecting to swing at a Boeing ball on the outside, Tomlin connected with this inside-family pitch. He says, “The Marine Corps. had taught me I could do anything for one year and I agreed to move to Vegas and start at Papillon.”
Papillon was a grand-slam homerun for Tomlin. “From Day One, I was hooked. I loved the staging logistics, teamwork, and excitement at Papillon. I first showed up in a suit and tie—way overdressed for helicopters! Brenda handed me a backpack and told me they were going to kick me around the company for a year to figure me out while I figured them out. They had a one-year management syllabus mapped out for me where I was transferred to a new department every six weeks. It was one the most rewarding and educational experiences of my life. The hooks got set deep in me and I got to love the people in this company.”
Tomlin entered Papillon as a product analyst in 2013 and diligently advanced through general management into the executive ranks, which ultimately resulted in him replacing the savvy CEO who recruited him, when she moved up to become chairwoman of the board in 2024. Tomlin is most grateful to his long-time boss, “I can’t say enough about Brenda, my predecessor. She is one of the most humble people I’ve known who’s in a leadership role. She rose to CEO in what was an aviation man’s club and followed her father with strength, passion, and humility. She started out at Papillon to support her dad, but developed her own love for vertical flight and really made it into something.” Then he adds, “She can also be kind of sneaky, like in the way she brought me to Papillon.”
Resilience
Tomlin’s thankfulness for his fulfilling career doesn’t mean he and Papillon haven’t seen turbulent times: COVID decimated tourism—and then gutted it. “Surviving that was the most challenging, hardest professional thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life,” he recalls. “Our company went from 650 employees down to 50 in 48 hours. I had to lay-off long-time loyal, passionate employees with no answer as to if and when they might come back. We had 75 aircraft on the ground. It was gut-wrenching. For every reason for me to stay and work through it, there were nine reasons for me to quit.”
How does one work through such grueling challenges? Tomlin answers, “The constant theme of my life seems to be resilience. I have the ability to adapt in times of conflict, but don’t rest in times of success. For me, it’s constantly never giving up…I’m also a person of faith and want to incorporate Christian values into how I lead. I try to be a servant-leader who is outwardly focused on taking care of the team, so they can take care of operations. When you achieve that, it’s awesome.”
Tomlin then preaches his life principle that got him through athletic competition, the Marines, and hard times: “Don’t give up; just don’t give up! There’s always a reason to stop what you’re doing, but don’t quit today.”
That fervor recently propelled Tomlin to his newest service role. He was just elected to the Vertical Aviation International (formerly HAI) board of directors. He says, “I feel compelled to give back. Elling was chairman two times and he didn’t do it for his benefit, but because he felt a rising tide lifts all ships.”
Tomlin fully knows helicopters don’t need tides to rise—they generate lift with resilient rotors that don’t give up.
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