Dent Aviation owner reflects on business

MOSES LAKE — Throughout the years, Tom Dent’s crop dusting business expanded with more employees and eventually returned to its current size.

At one time, the business hired additional pilots and operated extra airplanes at its Moses Lake Municipal Airport location.

But it pained him to fix work when it wasn’t done properly.

“When you realize that, the window was gone,” he said. “That was hard for me. That’s why I’m comfortable being here by myself.”

He considers his farmer customers his friends. 

“I really want to do it right,” Dent said. “I care about my growers and I want to do it right.”

“Once I set prices, I don’t look back until next fall. If I had a goal, I want to be the best crop duster out there.”

To him, crop dusting isn’t just about flying. It’s about food production.

“I feel like I have a purpose in what I do,” he said. “Food is one thing we have in common.”

Fungus and weeds are in competition with the food supply. His job is to “help us win,” he said.

He describes himself as “a guy who takes his job home with him.”

“When you work for yourself, it takes discipline, but there’s freedom that goes with it,” Dent commented.

There’re times he has to be at the office, but the business is seasonal.

Dent operates the business with his wife, Dayna, who works as the office manager.

He credits her for pushing him to do things he wouldn’t have otherwise. She convinced him to buy his current aircraft, an Air Tractor.

“It cost a lot of money, but she was right,” he said.

They have three children, a son Monty, 17, and two grown daughters, Aron and Teresa.

Tom has no immediate plans for retirement, but wants to grow their ranch instead, where there’s room to build an airstrip.

His other priority is to continue passing medical exams in order to remain a flight instructor.

In his spare time, he serves as the chairman of the Grant County Republicans.

He’s a self-proclaimed “political junkie,” whose interest started when he was 10, when Richard Nixon ran against John F. Kennedy for president.

“I was the Nixon guy,” he said. Tom lived in Quincy and remembers waking up early to learn from the newspaper that Kennedy won the election.

“I was mad,” he recalled. But, “Even though Kennedy won, we still had respect for him.”

Tom remembers watching the inauguration from his teacher’s home, with the rest of his class.

Kennedy’s famous speech, in which he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” stuck with Tom.

He’s been involved with campaigns ever since.

His political hero is President Harry S Truman, who was president when he was born.

Truman went broke running a haberdashery, but eventually repaid “every dime he owed,” Tom said. “He had character enough to do what he thought was right.”