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● NBAA ASSN ·By Lowen BaumgartenPhotos by Morgan Anderson Photography ·July 3, 2026 ·10:24Z

Flying Helped This Fireman Start a Furniture Business

Brandon Dunn, a volunteer fire chief and pilot, founded FireStationFurniture.com after recognizing the need for durable furniture designed to withstand the rigorous use in fire stations, eventually growing the business to serve over 5,500 fire departments nationwide. He uses a Cirrus Vision Jet to efficiently visit customers and manufacturers across the country, allowing his small seven-person team to conduct face-to-face business development and supplier evaluations that would be impractical through commercial travel. Flying has enabled him to significantly increase productivity by reducing travel time and allowing him to meet more customers and vet more suppliers while maintaining his role as an assistant fire chief.
Detailed analysis

Brandon Dunn's journey from volunteer firefighter to founder of FireStationFurniture.com illustrates a recurring theme in the NBAA's Member Profile series: business aviation as a force multiplier for niche, geographically dispersed enterprises. Dunn built a company serving over 5,500 fire departments nationwide—from Florida to Alaska—by leveraging his 26 years as a firefighter to design furniture that withstands the unique wear patterns of 24/7 fire station living quarters. What makes his story notable from an aviation perspective is the deliberate progression of his fleet: starting with a Cirrus SR22 piston single, upgrading to a turbocharged SR22T G6 in 2023, and finally stepping up to a preowned Cirrus Vision Jet SF50 as the business scaled. This trajectory mirrors a well-worn path among owner-operators who outgrow piston aircraft as their service radius and payload needs (in Dunn's case, both cargo capacity and additional staff) expand.

For working pilots and aviation operators, Dunn's case reinforces why business aviation remains indispensable to small and mid-sized companies operating in low-density, point-to-point markets. Fire departments are typically small commercial destinations—often served poorly or not at all by scheduled airline service—making general aviation airports the only practical gateway. Dunn's comment that "if I spend a lot of time traveling commercially, then I can't be productive" is a familiar refrain among entrepreneur-pilots who calculate that hours saved multiplying face-to-face client visits outweigh the costs of aircraft ownership. His use of the Vision Jet to bring sales staff, his wife (the company's VP), and even employees on factory tours to domestic manufacturers underscores how personal jets function as flexible extensions of a small workforce, enabling a company with just seven employees to maintain a national footprint.

The safety rationale behind Dunn's aircraft selection is also instructive for operators evaluating personal transportation aircraft. His prioritization of the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS)—citing his wife's ability to "get herself out of the situation" if he were incapacitated—reflects a growing owner-pilot consciousness around single-pilot risk mitigation, particularly for family-run businesses where spouses may not hold pilot certificates themselves. This safety-first purchasing logic has been a significant driver of Cirrus's success across both the piston SR-series and the SF50 jet, distinguishing the brand in a market segment where owner-flown single-engine jets face intense scrutiny over engine-out contingencies.

More broadly, Dunn's story fits into the expanding market for single-pilot, entry-level jets like the Vision Jet, HondaJet, and Cirrus's own upmarket positioning against turboprops such as the TBM and Pilatus PC-12. As these aircraft become more accessible to successful small-business owners rather than just corporate flight departments, the profile of the "owner-flown jet operator" continues to diversify beyond traditional executive travel into specialized B2B logistics—furniture delivery consultations, factory tours, organ transport, and other mission profiles once considered outside general aviation's traditional wheelhouse. For airport managers, FBOs, and maintenance providers, this trend signals continued demand growth at regional and reliever airports like Burlington-Alamance, where Dunn has co-located his company's headquarters directly in a hangar—a physical testament to how thoroughly aviation has become embedded in his operational model rather than a peripheral convenience.

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