Ten thousand feet above the firm, safe ground. One hundred and twenty mile-per-hour winds gusting past a small, single-engine airplane weighing no more than three thousand pounds. Beyond the just-opened hatch the distant ground comes into view and the city below makes monopoly houses look huge. A countdown, 3….2….1, and against all rational thought he leaves the safety of the plane. His cheeks flap in the wind while he fights for the body shape of an arched back and arms at ninety degrees to gain control. This is just a normal day at work for Urban Moore: pilot, skydiving instructor and owner of Eugene Skydivers.

      “It’s tough to describe [skydiving] to people who have never done it because it’s really not like anything you’ve ever tried before,” says Moore. He describes the air as becoming solid--like water you can float in, and a feeling of swimming. “If you relax and let the air do all the work, you can do all kinds of stuff,” he says. “Don’t fight the air; just give up.”

       Young at heart, Moore is fifty-nine, yet still talks about what he’s going to do when he grows up. Unkempt white hair, sleek black sunglasses and a rugged tan face complement his fun-loving personality and the love affair he has with extreme hobbies. “Outside of skydiving and flying airplanes I like to race motorcycles,” says Moore.

        He prides himself on the five motorcycles and three aircrafts he owns. “He who dies with the most toys wins,” Moore says, laughing.

        Moore describes himself as “just a regular guy trying to get along.” But most would say his normal work day does not qualify him as a “regular guy.” Moore has under his belt a little more than 8500 jumps and 3500 hours of flight time. “I’m lucky,” he says, “because I do what I love and make it a living.”

        He also has recently gotten into target shooting. Moore describes it as similar to paintball, but with real hand guns. “It’s outdoors and you move from station to station and hide behind things and have to be able to hit targets. It’s a skill I’m developing, but I like it,” says Moore.

       So what scares this skydive-loving, motorcycle-racing, pistol-shooting business-owner? Things he can’t control. “Things that are out of my control that could affect me adversely are things that scare me,” says Moore. “It may be a business issue or a legal thing, something I don’t have the knowledge or the expertise for that particular thing.”

      This fear explains his love for new challenges. Moore doesn’t describe himself as a thrill-seeking individual. “Yea, [skydiving’s] exciting and it’s a lot of fun, but it’s also a discipline and a skill. It’s a sport,” says Moore. “It’s more of a challenge that I’m attracted to.”

       Moore got into the business of skydiving while he was a TV personality for a show called Idaho Recreational Sports, where he went skydiving for the first time as part of one of the episodes. “I just started jumping and really having fun and never really stopped,” he says.

       After spending two years on the show, he moved back to his hometown of Eugene and worked for a small hardware store called Fasnol during the week and Willamette Valley Parachute on the weekends. “I’m kind of an entrepreneurial person,” says Moore. “I could see all the money going through there, and I thought, ‘heck, I can do that myself.’”

       Thus Eugene Skydivers was born in 1992, and has since been very successful. Moore says when he started the business he rented everything, including the planes and equipment. He made many sacrifices for his business, even living out of the back of a car. Now he owes nothing, owning everything including the three planes used to fly thrill seekers to their ten thousand foot adventure.

        Eugene Skydivers operates not with employees, but with independent contractors. “The people who work here work at other places, provide their own stuff and even show up when they want,” explains Moore. “All I can do is advise them when I have people interested. It’s kind of a juggling act.”

       But Moore describes the industry as unlike a normal business setting. “We provide a lewd and lascivious lifestyle, and we show that,” says Moore. “It’s not the terror and the fear that most businesses are. Everybody smiles, laughs, has fun.”

       And although that makes for a fun work atmosphere, that’s not what excites him for his day. The thing that brings Moore to his 40-by-40 foot hanger when there is no challenge to be attempted is the people he gets to talk to and share his experiences with. “The people I get to meet- that’s the fun part,” he says.     “Everybody’s different. It’s always different- never the same thing. Introducing them to something, showing them a good time, seeing them smile when they leave- that kind of stuff. I get off on that.”

      The planes that Moore owns and uses in his business are Cessna 182s. These small planes hold a maximum of five people, including the pilot. Cessnas are your “garden variety airplane,” explains Moore. He also says they add to the ease of his job. “They can haul up to four jumpers to altitude fairly quickly; they’re easy to fly, easy to maintain and fairly fuel efficient.”

       Moore says the thing he has learned most in the skydiving industry is how to work with different kinds of people. “I’ve learned to get along with different senses of humor, personalities and getting to make it all work,” he says. His style of leadership has worked well for him so far and aided the growth of his company. “My style is more guidance,” he says. “I show them how things are going to be, and let them do it.”

      In coming this far, Moore has shown his ability to master the challenges set before him, and may not even stop at successful job-loving business owner. His next ambitious goal? “I’m interested in law when I grow up,” he says.