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You've just arrived at Lindbergh Field after suffering bad food and a bad movie in a cramped airplane on five-hour flight from Pittsburgh. You have less than an hour to check into your hotel, then dash over to the Convention Center for your first meeting of the day. What's next, a grubby ride to Downtown that'll make that plane trip seem like a South Seas cruise?
You step up to the curb, and surprise! Greeting you is a courteous and informed "concierge" in a pressed uniform and shined shoes, driving a clean van with classical or soft jazz music playing in the background. On the way Downtown, the driver fills you in on a bit of San Diego's history.
Happy? If you are, John S. Hawkins, president, CEO and chief pitchman for Cloud 9 Shuttle, certainly is. Hawkins knows he's keeping up the vow he made when he took charge of Cloud 9.
"To provide the most reliable, safest; cleanest and most enjoyable airport ground transportation to visitors and residents...(and to become) "a stellar corporate citizen" as well as to furnish positive first and last impressions of San Diego to the traveling public."
If numbers are any indication, Hawkins' vow has been upheld. In less than two years, Cloud 9 has soared above the shuttle van competition at Lindbergh Field. Cloud 9 now fields 90 vans, dwarfing the 13 competing companies. Its closest competition is Prime Ride Shuttle, with 19 vans.
Hawkins estimates Cloud 9 will generate revenues of $8 million this...