Pittsburgh Pirates Prospect Quinn Priester From Aviation Family
Priester hails from family with 75+ year history in aviation industry
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Leading Off
Pirates Prospect Quinn Priester Hails from Family with Rich Aviation History
By Paul M. Banks
If Pittsburgh Pirates super-prospect Quinn Priester wasn't playing baseball, he'd probably be working in aviation right now. The Pirates' 2019 first-round draft pick (19th overall out of Cary-Grove High School) hails from a family highly heralded in Illinois aviation history.
His great-grandfather, George J. Priester, founded the company that is known today as Priester Aviation, a private jet charter and aircraft management service located at Chicago Executive Airport in northwest suburban Wheeling, IL.
"I just love flying, and through the business, aviation has always been part of my life," Quinn told us in an exclusive interview by phone.
"Whether it is my Dad coming home from work, or we're playing golf and I look up and say 'hey, what plane is that? and he'll rattle it off, or watching Top Gun growing up."
Priester added that if he wasn't playing professional baseball right now, he'd definitely be a pilot. While he hasn't soloed yet, he does have about 10 total hours of recorded total flight time.
He describes his time in the wild blue yonder so far as "nothing serious, it's been mostly me and (Uncle) Alex (a United Airlines pilot) going up and messing around, having fun; definitely super basic."
He added: "I love doing it whenever I get the chance, but it's not a top priority."
Priester is currently having a very successful season with the Pirates' AAA affiliate, the Indianapolis Indians. Rated by some services as the fourth-best overall prospect in the Pirates organization, and the top-rated right-handed pitching prospect in the NL Central division, it won't be long until he makes his Major League debut.
You could easily see him with the parent club later this season.
The Priester Aviation business has origins in WWII. It all began when George Priester opened a flight training school in 1945. Earlier this month, I sat down for an exclusive with Andy Priester, Quinn's father and the man leading the company for the past decade.
"He (George) was really a railroad guy, who got into aviation," Andy explained.
"As his passion for aviation grew he decided that he wanted to make a career out of it, mostly by teaching pilots coming out of the war to fly in civilian service. George J. Priester Aviation Service, where we all started, was a flight training school.
"He realized that if he was going to have an aviation business he really should have an airport."
And in 1953, the Priester family bought Gauthier's Flying Field from Parks College and renamed it Palwaukee Airport (the name is derived from its being situated at the cross streets of Palatine Road and Milwaukee Avenue). It has since been renamed Chicago Executive Airport.
"When the war ended, Parks College didn't need the airport anymore, so they sold it," Andy continued.
"They had two airports, one was just for military pilot training. It was the only airport for sale, so that's the one he bought- cinder runways, ash pot runway lights, 108 acres of grass. Today, it's 5,000 feet of paved runway.
"He bought up a bunch of farmland to make the footprint you see today, and it was the third busiest airport in Illinois for a number of years."
According to the company branding, Palwaukee was named the busiest privately owned airport in the world in 1983. Three years later, the family sold the airport to the neighboring villages of Wheeling and Prospect Heights.
You can still see the company's WWII roots today, in one specific airplane that really stands out from the rest of Priester Aviation's current fleet of 84. The Stagger Wing, a biplane that was part of the NBC News Camel Caravan, resides in a prime location of the company's main hangar.
This plane helped produce NBC's first programming to ever contain live news reels. Before that, they had only utilized b-roll, or other pre-recorded footage for their newscasts.
The Stagger Wing has since been repainted into its colors and branding from the 1950s. There is a massive photo portrait of the plane, in its heyday, on the walls of the company boardroom.
Prior to its life in the media industry, the Stagger Wing served in the European Theatre of the second world war, as an executive transport plane. It was also utilized in shore patrol for the Royal Air Force.
It was one of 12 planes on a barge that was shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to Great Britain, as stipulated in the Lend-Lease Act.
This plane and its barge survived the transatlantic passage, but the other barge, carrying another dozen Stagger Wings, was sunk by the Germans.
Indeed the Priester family business has a very rich history. Just outside the stretch of Milwaukee Avenue where the business is headquartered lies an honorary street sign to Charlie Priester, son of George, father of Andy and grandfather of Quinn.
Charlie joined the company at age 14, and he was the man who truly built it into what it is day.
His legacy, as well as the rest of the family, is celebrated in a special space at Priester Aviation.
"As we thought about what could we do about building relationships, especially during covid, something I wanted to do was build this lounge, and we call it hangar one," Andy Priester told me when I sat down with him, his daughter Maddie and his nephew James, who are also highly involved in the company.
"And we created a space for team members to come, hang out, watch some tv, grab a beer, and have lunch. We wanted to make sure this space is reflective of the company and honors our heritage. This is where we came from, and this is where we're going."
Each room within Hangar One is named after a Priester family member who was instrumental in the development of the company.
Time will tell the story of Quinn Priester's MLB career. He grew up a Cubs fan, idolizing Kyle Hendricks, even though he is a very different kind of pitcher.
Regardless of what happens with his baseball career story, his family history is astounding in its own right.
"It's just cool, there is a certain expectation, with having our name on the side of the building," he said. "I'm just proud that it has turned our family into leaders."
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”