My Passion: Kevin Egan

Kevin Egan, president and chief operating officer of American Legend and Belclaire Homes, is passionate about flying. Not the rush-to-the-airport-and-board-a commercial-airliner kind of flying, but getting behind the controls of his Cirrus SR-22 Turbo and taking off for fun destinations—like Augusta, Ga., to watch The Masters; northern Michigan for a summer vacation with his wife; Fort Collins, Colo., for a fundraising event; or New Orleans, to attend the 2014 Sugar Bowl. ¶ Beyond the travel adventures, what Egan loves most about piloting his own plane is the stress relief. “When you get in the cockpit, you become really focused on all of the details of flying,” he says. “It takes your mind away from the other stuff. When you’re up in the air, you have to be focused differently, not thinking about work or other issues. It’s a release.” ¶ Sometimes, though, things can get a little scary. Once when Egan was flying solo to Colorado, the wings of his plane began taking on ice when he encountered a storm. Things got dicey as he climbed higher. Egan went on to land safely, but kept the ordeal from his wife for a while, not wanting to worry her. ¶ He first began pursuing his passion in the late 1990s. He was then working for Darling Homes, which was expanding into Houston. Egan would spend his work-weeks there and fly home via Southwest on the weekends. “Hobby [Airport] was a disaster on Friday nights, and I had always had an interest in flying,” he says. One thing led to another, and Egan began taking lessons from a flight instructor at Addison Airport. ¶ He bought his current plane, the first of its kind to be equipped with a parachute, in 2007. “It seats four, but flies faster than most other single-engines,” he says. “It’s also one of the safest you can buy.” Egan says he loves flying over the desert in Arizona and the mountains in northern Colorado, and taking buddies to golf trips in Ruidoso, N.M.—not the easiest place to get to when flying commercially, he says: “It’s definitely a privilege to have your own plane.”