Alumnus Ben Garey employs University of Denver alumni and faculty at company he developed in Daniels’ Professional MBA Program
In 2016, construction manager Ben Garey (MBA 2021) took up flying as a weekend hobby while his wife, a birth photographer, caught up on sleep after working nights. After earning his pilot’s license and purchasing a small plane, he quickly encountered an unexpected challenge—finding a place to store it. As it turned out, securing a hangar for a Cessna was even more difficult than finding a parking spot in downtown Denver.
Eager to understand the root of the problem—and determined to find a solution—Garey brought this challenge to the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. Throughout his coursework in the Professional MBA (PMBA) program, he explored airport real estate economics, discovered “The National Hangar Crisis,” and developed business models to help airports better assess their funding models and approaches to asset management.
“Leveraging the frameworks and concepts at DU, I realized the problem wasn’t hangar costs. It was that airports were undervaluing their real estate and missing development opportunities,” Garey said. “I saw an opportunity to use AI data-driven solutions to help airports set fair market lease rates and improve their financial sustainability more broadly.”
Garey also plugged into the vast Daniels network of alumni, faculty and corporate partners, where he met mentors, advisors and collaborators. In the Pioneer Venture Group, a student-run investment fund, he dove into the world of startups and venture capital, learning what it would take to secure investors to help get his ideas off the ground.
Garey’s work became the foundation of various entities, which launched in 2021 and ultimately became Capstone Aero, a fully integrated company that develops investment solutions for critical infrastructure nationally. Garey explained that airports have been operating under a legacy business model and overlooking their true value, which is rooted in real estate.
“The challenge isn’t just a lack of space—it’s a mindset,” he said. “For years, airport directors have treated their facilities like gas stations rather than strategically managed real estate. This approach has led to underpriced lease rates, unmet demand and, in the FAA’s own words, trillions of dollars in underinvestment.”
Historically, fuel sales were a primary revenue driver for airports, leading many to discount lease rates to attract more fuel purchases. However, as fuel margins have tightened and aviation technology has evolved, this approach has left economically critical real estate underpriced and underutilized. Without aligning lease rates with fair market value, airports miss out on a critical, stable revenue stream that could support infrastructure expansion, including new hangars.
Garey’s venture suggests that realigning airport revenue models begins with moving away from a reliance on fuel sales and toward strategic real estate management. By adopting data-driven fair market lease rates, airports can create more stable, investment-ready markets that attract long-term development. This shift, he explained, enables developers and contractors to expand aircraft storage, maximizes existing land use, and ensures that airports generate sustainable revenue from their real estate rather than relying on fuel sales as their primary financial lever.
“My experience in the Daniels PMBA program was critical to understanding these dynamics from a business perspective and heavily influenced our decision to focus on the public sector, from an ethics perspective,” Garey said.
Over the past year, the company has assembled a team of financial planners, data analysts, theoretical mathematicians and real estate experts to develop a proprietary AI that analyzes national market trends and helps airports implement data-driven lease pricing strategies. Today, approximately 75% of Capstone Aero’s employees are Daniels alumni or former faculty, reinforcing the company’s strong connection to DU’s expertise in business, finance, and data science.
“We are seeing firsthand how many airports struggle to maximize their real estate value and yearly revenue,” said Jordan Deifik, COO at Capstone Aero and DU alum. “By developing tools for airport stakeholders quantify the value of critical economic infrastructure, we ensure long-term viability, access, and future investment.”
Now that Capstone Aero has the technology and people, it is building on its DU connection and their experiential learning focus by partnering with Daniels students to develop a case study on airport revenue and pricing strategies at Centennial Airport.
Commissioned by Capstone Aero as a Daniels corporate challenge project, students gain real-world experience while the business and its clients benefit from students’ perspectives. Garey hopes the case can be used to standardize and scale airport development strategies nationwide.
“General aviation airports play a significant role in regional economies, yet their economic impact is often overlooked,” Garey said. “Centennial Airport, for example, is one of the nation’s leading business aviation airports, contributing billions to the South Denver economy, but faces an inflection point. While major commercial airports have access to substantial funding to meet growth demands, general aviation airports like Centennial must take a different approach to ensure long-term financial sustainability.”
Garey added that providing actionable insights for infrastructure stakeholders protects growth opportunities for business operations nearby, benefiting local societies and economies.
“All this does tie very closely to the Daniels motto of ‘Pioneering Business for the Public Good,’” Garey said. “Daniels crafts a curriculum that shows you that the best opportunities are those that are also ethically sound. I’m very excited about helping Centennial Airport increase their profile, and to have Daniels be a part of that.”
And as for Garey’s original quest for a place to park his plane? Let’s just say, he’s working on it.