3M's Gulfstream lands in Waco the week of a CEO earnings call

3M flew from Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Florida, to TSTC Waco Airport in Texas on the evening of May 20, a brief 1-hour-41-minute hop aboard its Gulfstream G550, tail number N83M. The flight arrived just after sunset, with the aircraft cruising at 47,000 feet over the Gulf states.

The trip comes the same week 3M's chairman and CEO William Brown fielded questions about the company's first-quarter 2026 results, reported on April 21, per a press release on investors.3m.com. In that call, Brown addressed “pockets of macro pressure” and rising oil costs, while noting 3M is investing to “more than double” capacity for AI-related data center and power utility business, as covered by Digital Commerce 360. Waco sits roughly 90 miles from 3M's large manufacturing and distribution operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth corridor, making the stop a plausible prelude to site visits or investor meetings.

Earlier on May 20, the same jet flew a short loop near the Florida panhandle, suggesting a multi-stop itinerary. The CEO's pattern of using 3M's corporate Gulfstream for factory visits and investor events is well established; in March, Brown spoke at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference in New York, per a transcript on Seeking Alpha. A trip to Waco, while not a standard recurring destination, fits the rhythm of a chief executive shuttling between 3M's Minnesota headquarters and its far-flung industrial footprint.