Editor’s Note: With this story, Aero Crew News is launching a new column dedicated to introducing our audience to the opportunities in which air crew have chosen as a MOONLIGHT endeavor, aka side-hustle. Inspired by our own publisher, Captain Craig Pieper, we would like to invite our readers to share their stories. Please email info@aerocrewnews about your own moonlight gig. Interesting stories will be assigned a writer for future publication.
“On the first days of my trip, I try to, every time, take cookies for the crew.” Those were the words of a 737 captain who also—you guessed it—owns a cookie company!
United Airlines’ Captain Chris Welch is the owner and operator of Aviator Cookie Company in Midland, Mich. In 2008, Welch graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with his master’s degree in aviation business administration (MBA) after having earned his Bachelor of Science in 2001 from Western Michigan University in business and marketing.
In 2020, when COVID-19 made air travel come to a screeching halt, Welch decided to combine his two passions, flying and baking, to become both a pilot and business owner. “During Covid, I was flying international on the 767, and overnight, they grounded all the international flying,” Welch said.
Welch had been in this situation before, as he began his flying career just two weeks before the attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. Nervous that he would be furloughed again, Welch knew he had to have a backup plan. With his schooling and experience, Welch had the perfect fallback—to start a business. “I knew it was kind of a once in a lifetime for our career to have all that time off without flying, so I went and searched and tried to find things that my community needed,” Welch said. Welch found that there weren’t many options as everything was basically covered in his community. Then, his daughter sparked an idea.
“I looked at laundromats, but there were already too many of them and we’re just driving around town, and my daughter says that one day she wants to have a cookie shop when she grows up,” Welch said. That is when he came up with the perfect plan.
Welch had received a cookbook from his mother while he was furloughed following 9/11 and started baking cookies. So, with baking in his back pocket this time around, he looked into starting a cookie company. “It always became a hobby and so it just made sense to do what you’re good at and so I started the business,” Welch said.
From there, Welch began to build up his company until finally, on March 20, 2021, Aviator Cookie Company had its grand opening in downtown Midland.
Having to refer to his courses from Embry-Riddle when owning a business, Welch says his MBA came in handy. “The terms were definitely there –the concepts. I’ve had to rely on a lot of the accounting classes, statistics,” Welch said. “We wrote so many papers and long papers and when you start a business, it is kind of the same. You almost have to create a research project; it’s a business plan.”
Currently, Aviator Cookie Company has one location in Michigan, but also has an online presence where cookies are shipped nationwide. As far as the cookies go, Aviator Cookie Company has a wide variety of flavors with their best sellers being chocolate chip, snickerdoodle and lemon. Welch compares the cookies to Crumbl, saying they are large and have unique flavors with about 40 different kinds of cookies; some come out as limited-time flavors based on seasons.
But it is not just the cookies that are unique; there are elements in the store that bring out the aviation side as well. “It’s an aviation-themed business obviously; our countertop is a Twin Bonanza wing, so we have ‘first-class’ cookies,” Welch said.
He said Aviator Cookie Company is currently hoping to continue expanding online while continuing its operations out of the Midland location.
From his mother’s gift of a cookbook to his daughter planting a seed in his head, Welch has turned a hobby into a successful business while also continuing his passion as an airline pilot.
Aviator Cookie Company can be found at 230 E. Main St. in Midland, Mich. or online at https://aviatorcookie.com/.
