David G. Mayer (pictured) has joined Shackelford, Melton & McKinley in Dallas as a partner in the firm’s aviation practice.
Mayer says he joined the firm in part because “there’s a nationally known business aviation team there led by David Norton. I’ve known and respected David Norton for over a decade. . . . His activity and mine were highly complementary.”
Before practicing law in Dallas, Mayer says he began his career in New York. After practicing with a firm and a corporation there, Mayer says he moved to San Francisco to work at GATX Corp. in the leasing and equipment financing company.
During his time at GATX, he says he “gained enough knowledge to write ‘Business Leasing for Dummies.’ ” He says people still call him trying to get a copy of the book.
After spending time in San Francisco, Mayer says he moved to Dallas for a combination of reasons. “I had the opportunity to be deputy general counsel at Panda Energy International, and also family was here,” he says.
Mayer says he began practicing in business aviation in the mid-1980s. “I started more with commercial. Then, in the last dozen years or so, I’ve been focused on business aviation. I started in the equipment finance business and came to aviation,” he says.
Mayer says now he is increasing the extent of his work in business aviation and will “maintain a wide level of activity on equipment finance leasing.”
“What is important is that this move is one that will allow me a lot of flexibility in business aviation and equipment finance that the firm is excited to support,” Mayer says. He also says it is important to him that he has the “ability to act for customers as well as guys who lend and lease,” and to do so at prices that are competitive.
Mayer says he finds business aviation interesting, and because there is a great amount of activity in the area, it ended up as his concentration. “I like the airplanes,” he says. “I like the way they work, and the people who operate them are very interesting and fun.”
Despite his knowledge of aviation and his enjoyment of planes, Mayer says he doesn’t fly them. “I fly on a lot of planes,” he says. “But not as a pilot.”
— Christine Lesicko
Anyone who knows Norton is fairly certain he was the inspiration for Mayer's book.
Posted by: Ima Pepper | October 26, 2012 at 02:41 PM