Fighter jets, fossil fuels and a carefully crafted focus are keys to the success of the Busey Group, founded by Oklahoma City businessman Phil G. Busey Sr.

But it’s the last one that he lists as the linchpin of his company’s dramatic gains over its decade-long existence. Since 2002, the Busey Group has grown by more than 1,000%, largely driven by its Delaware Resource Group and an aerospace focus. Gross revenues last year topped the $22 million mark, and Busey says his group is poised for more expansion.

Currently, the Busey Group is bidding nine additional contracts with the government. Two more sites overseas with the aircraft platform are soon to come online, and the company hopes to offer its newfound fossil fuel energy knowledge to other companies.

It’s no wonder the man behind it all was recently named Oklahoma’s Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

A 2000 meeting with Boeing paved the way for where the group is now. Calling on a model developed in the late 1990s with Lockheed and NASA for lower-cost subcontracting solutions, he approached Boeing with a plan to cut costs and boost productivity. A member of the Cherokee Nation and Delaware Tribe, he was able to sweeten the deal with his company’s designation as a disadvantaged-minority business.

On Sept. 30, 2002, there were two people on Busey’s payroll. The next day, that number had swelled to 95, with Boeing sending an existing workforce over and giving Busey free reign.

 “We did a 100% transition. We lowered their costs significantly, gave them (minority business) credit and matched all of their health care benefits and 401(k) … and then took onboard some of their line managers,” Busey says. “We learned. We developed our skills and added other subcontracts over the years.”

More recently, the company has branched into coal-bed methane-gas extraction. Much like in the beginning, his group took an opportunity and ran with it. Last year, the company was named Marathon Oil’s minority supplier of the year.

“Larger businesses, it sometimes takes them a much longer time to turn toward new solutions,” Busey says. “Smaller companies have a real opportunity to find out what the needs of those larger companies are and adapt a solution that fits and works for them. That’s what we did.

“To Boeing, it wasn’t ‘this is what we do.’ We started out by asking them what they needed. Once we figured out what they needed, together we were able to craft the solution.”