Visionary and Successful Serial Entrepreneur.
Prairie Sky Entertainment is a management and holding company founded and led by Ben Thomas. It identifies opportunities and incubates them into operating businesses, including Altitude Trampoline Parks and Alma-Fit. Every venture gets the operating discipline of 30+ years at Ford Motor Company, Penske Corporate and Mercedes-Benz USA.
Ben spent the first part of his career inside some of the most demanding operating environments in the world. At Ford Motor Company he was an engineer, a Six Sigma Black Belt and a zone manager. At Penske Corporate he helped launch the first micro car in the United States. At Mercedes-Benz USA he led residual value management and the North American EV strategy, which Daimler called CASE (connected, autonomous, shared and electric).
In 2016, while living in Texas, he founded Prairie Sky Entertainment there to identify and incubate companies of his own. Through PSE he owns and operates four Altitude Trampoline Parks across Alabama and Georgia, founded the fitness brand Alma-Fit, and serves on the advisory boards of CieloVision and the Altitude Trampoline Parks franchise network.
His approach is simple: find the opportunity, write a disciplined plan, recruit the best people, and roll up your sleeves. Strong local roots matter too, because the community is what keeps a business going.
PSE incubates each business until it is generating money. Then it is spun off as its own free-standing LLC. Every company is built around a great customer experience, high safety standards and close ties to its community.
Find an underserved market or an unmet need, and test it against a disciplined business plan.
PSE builds the business from the ground up. It recruits the team, lines up partners and the supply chain, and stays hands-on through launch.
Once the company is profitable, it becomes a free-standing LLC with its own operations. PSE moves on to the next opportunity.
The first location to combine Altitude, Birdie ParTee and Crave under one roof. It has trampoline attractions by Akrobat and an 18-hole indoor mini golf course built with Putt Brothers.
A flagship park and the first Akrobat-built park in the Altitude brand, with cutting-edge attractions designed for maximum capacity and experience.
Built with Best American Trampoline to serve west Atlanta, an area with few family entertainment options.
The largest indoor trampoline park in Alabama, with 10 attractions for all ages. It serves almost 10,000 guests a month and is being upgraded with six new attractions.
A brand that started with high-quality safety socks. Alma-Fit designed the product, found a manufacturing partner, built the supply chain and sold 150,000 units in its first 7 days. It now also sells Pilates equipment through Amazon and its own store.
Acquired a single-van, non-emergency wheelchair transport business. Ben built its tracking, call center and scheduling systems and grew it to 7 vans serving 8 nursing homes. It was sold to a larger ambulance operator at 3× its value.
Ben is open to partnerships, new locations, advisory work and conversations with fellow operators.