Barry Alexander has major ambitions to build a large-scale drone manufacturing company in downtown Hartford, but he’s not a household name in the business community.
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Barry Alexander has major ambitions to build a large-scale drone manufacturing company in downtown Hartford, but he’s not a household name in the business community.
A licensed airplane and helicopter pilot, Alexander has flown Boeing 747 jets, mostly recently for Atlas Air, and has worked as a flight instructor as well as an aircraft-maintenance technician, including for aircraft manufacturer Bombardier.
He was previously director at the Hartford Jet Center, a fixed-based operator at Hartford-Brainard Airport.
He has also dabbled in entrepreneurship, founding one company that offered web design and development of prepaid debit card programs, and another — BLM Enterprises — that offers construction and project-management services. BLM remains active.
Alexander made headlines in the late 1990s when he was working as a construction contractor and was arrested for felony larceny stemming from a scheme that, according to the Hartford Courant, bilked approximately $200,000 from Hartford Neighborhood Centers, a nonprofit that operates a summer day camp for low-income youth.
In 1996 and 1997, Alexander and Lois Stevenson, who at the time was a Hartford Neighborhood Centers board member with control of its capital-projects account, steered phantom or inflated contracts to Alexander Construction for improvements at the camp, most of which were never completed, according to the Courant.
The prosecutor portrayed Stevenson as the scheme’s mastermind, and she ultimately received a steeper sentence than Alexander, who got a six-year prison sentence, suspended after 60 days time served. He also got five years of probation and community service, according to the Courant.
In 2005, he successfully applied to the court for a modification of his sentence, citing good behavior, full-time employment, and repayment of $100,000, according to a court document he provided to Hartford Business Journal.
The judge modified his sentence to an “unconditional release,” which ended his remaining probation. The release still counts as a conviction under state law.
“My actions were foolish and reckless, and for over 20 years, I have regretted it,” Alexander said when asked about the experience, describing himself as “young and naive” at the time.
“Since that time, I have strived for betterment and have maintained a spotless record,” he added. “The beauty of life is that we are all given the choice of becoming better versions of ourselves, which I have embraced. And for that I am grateful and have persevered.”
