SAN DIEGO — An elite skydiving team wants to parachute into your company's next big party. In this Zevely Zone, I jumped into action at Brown Field. It takes a special kind of person to say take me up in a plane to jump out. It may not be the greatest show on earth, but Skydiving Innovations is clearly the greatest show in the skies above it. "We just found a way to make a living doing something we love," said co-owner Ron Lee. He and his team have pulled off nearly 500 sky shows without an accident. Ron wants to thank the brains of the operation. "It's exciting," said Ron's wife, Todd. She pulls the strings, but never the ripcord. "I own a skydiving company and I've never jumped before. Not once," said Todd.
That's okay, when you've got a daredevil like Greg Melcher. He's survived thousands of jumps. "So far," laughed Greg. He will jump any time any place. "We do night jumps quite a bit," said Greg. When I shouted out the difference places where he could land such as a beach, boat, water and even the back of a car, Ron just smiled and calmly said, "Anywhere."
These guys are pros who make it look so easy, I wanted to suit up. "Jeff are you ready to jump?" asked Ron. I responded, "Nope. I promised my wife I'd never do that but we could practice for the day I finally get to do it." The team put a parachute on my back and had me perform a practice jump from a chair. "3,2,1 jump!" they yelled. The jump went great but I forgot to deploy the parachute!
Details matter, like in 2009, when Skydiving Innovations orchestrated 100 jumpers over San Francisco. It was record breaking jump and the largest jump of its kind. "It scratches that itch," said Andy Crout-Hamel. He has jumped out of a plane more than eight thousand times. Andy was a member of our military's elite team. "I was a Navy SEAL so when I retired I'm not going to go to podunk Idaho and become a hardware manager."
Nope, he wanted to scratch that itch with a second career. If a corporation wants to have a huge event or roll out a new product Skydiving Innovations is a company to call. "Yep, yep," said Ron. "Our job is to find a compelling, interesting and inspiring way to help companies reach their target audience."
Want to brag about your brand? These guys will launch it while streaming the event with live video in full HD with high tech helmet cams. Ron showed us how they get that footage with really fancy helmet equipment. "Yep, this system right here," said Ron who told us the helmet rigs cost more than $20,000 each.
If you've ever wanted to fly high in life, you could follow Ron's sage advice. "Find something you like to do, get really, really good at it, and then go find someone who will pay you to do it and so this makes that equation every single day," said Ron.
Skydiving Innovations is a professional demonstration parachute team. They've performed nearly 500 skydiving shows in 38 years staffed with civilian and most military specialists. They are the exclusive parachute team for the USS Midway and Hotel del Coronado. They perform as Santa at the Hotel del Coronado's community event every December. They also provide Navy SEAL-inspired team building bootcamps for corporate groups coming to San Diego. For more information, click here.