When landing at LAX after a long trip abroad, I can’t think of a more soothing sight than being greeted by a big blue bus that says “Santa Barbara Airbus.” I know it will comfortably take me back home.
“We wanted the interior of the buses to look more like a living room than a waiting room,” explains the company’s founder and co-owner, Eric Onnen, who exudes honesty and reliability in person, the exact qualities I associate with his business.
He came to UCSB in 1978 from El Camino College in Torrance, where he’d studied theater and business. Although he took as many theater classes as he could, he majored in economics and business. While at school, he worked at the Country Meat Market and Catering Company in Goleta and, after graduation in 1981, became the manager. That’s where he worked with his future business partner, Mark Klopstein.