Nice to Meet Ya: Mark Lebovitz

Dripping Springs is the world headquarters for a company whose expertise is in keeping jets of all types flying—commercial and governmental. Located on U.S. 290, in a little nondescript building, is L2 Consulting. But inside is where the technical experts are, checking and rechecking, responsible for keeping aircrafts up to date and in the air.

L2 Consulting, formally L2 Avionics, is a company that has teams ready to fly out at any moment to update and retrofit jets of all types and systems, anywhere in the world. Mark Lebovitz, CEO and a University of Texas at Austin graduate, moved his business from Bergstrom Airport to Dripping Springs in 2001 after starting it in 1997.

“After I graduated, I worked in Waco for five years, after a summer job in the aircraft industry, where I was hired back year after year.” His first company was with a partner. L2 is the second aircraft business he had started. That first business was sold and in a few years he started L2 Avionics. His forte is satellite communication.

“We moved to Dripping Springs in 2001, mainly working out of the house. All work is done at remote job sites. We go out on mods (modifications) on cargo aircraft, travel all over the world. We moved …because the schools are better in Dripping Springs and it was a better fit for my wife and her job,” Mark said.

His wife Michelle is now the Vice President of Finance for the company and a major part of the team. L2 is named for the two. Both of their children are DSHS graduates.

Diverse systems functioning and working together are critical on highly technical, present day aircrafts. The big plus for L2, is servicing and modifying numerous systems in the client's aircraft, anywhere in the world, at your hangar, on a tarmac, wherever the planes that need L2’s services are located.

“A team was formed, say we had five people in a team, there would be three here and two remote…everybody interacts well and it works well for the employees.” He continued.

“Aviation has to be zero defects, methodology and the culture, always looking for how to do things better and for improvements.” They were named “essential” during this pandemic. There have been numerous big drawbacks to the business during this period.

One of those drawbacks being how they market their services now, whereas in the past, conferences and trade shows were a big part of attracting business. “The status quo and developing sales do not work well in the new world…Selling is different now before a call or conference call.”

But in developing new relationships and the use of that technology, he has seen a change and he and customers are warming up to each other using it, making it more personable. Of course, they are using the latest tech to communicate, using TEAM or Zoom.

Now that the technology has been in use for a while, “We see new opportunities… our sales are mainly repeat customers, but we rate high on customer surveys. Our goal is to keep our existing customer base happy, but bring on new customers,” he said.

L2 has all the FAA certifications that are needed and the business is sought out for their services because of these certifications, even as far as China and Russia, which can take months to get approval.

“We’ve done a lot in China. One was satellite communication, an airline was unable to talk to the satellite and we had to retrofit it so that they could talk to the satellite.”

He continued. “We have lots of experience in communication systems… surveillance and all systems on the flight deck. We update displays.” In back of the HQ is a mockup of a 767 part of the flight deck as a prototype for new systems.

One of the latest government contracts was to work on KC 10s, a gigantic tanker in the sky that refuels jets in the air, like F-15 and later technology fighter jets. The planes needed new certifications. “We had two teams, in New Jersey and California. There were quite some challenges, but we got it completed.”

Now and in the near future, they plan to advertise more using social media and will bring in outside help to navigate the business world. But the company’s big plus remains, “we’ll go anywhere at your convenience (to update or modify your planes) on a ramp, in a hangar, visit you in the night time, visit so you’re not out of operation,” Mark said.