Tom Clark was an American Air Force flight instructor who trained pilots in the art of air combat prior to them heading to Vietnam. After his honorable discharge in 1975, and before taking over the family aviation business his father had started in 1945, Tulsair Beechcraft, he made a short stint in Hollywood to decide if a career at Tulsair was truly for him. During the two years he spent in California, he funded and produced a film called Black Oak Conspiracy which he sold to Roger Corman of New World Pictures and was distributed world-wide and on HBO.