Since 1967 800-359-2299

Home » News

Richmor Aviation Flying Strong and Steady for More Than Four Decades

Richmor Aviation Inc., the winner of the Chamber’s Excellence in Business Awards & Showcase for Large Company of the Year in 2008, they have been a strong and steady business presence in Columbia County for 42 years, providing not only tax and other revenues but also well-paying jobs and significant charitable contributions to local non-profits and institutions.

The company started small with one, four-passenger plane and two employees. Over the ensuing decades Richmor has grown. Today the company owns, manages and/or charters 15 planes, has 18 flight school airplanes, and employs 120 people as pilots, mechanics, flight instructors and office personnel.

Many of Richmor’s employees have been with the company 20 years or more, as have some customers. Owner Mahlon Richards has a reputation for taking care of his employees, whom he treats like family and provides with a generous benefits package (almost unheard of in today’s corporate world) that includes an annual profit sharing bonus.

“Mahlon definitely likes to take care of his employees,” said his daughter, Sharyn Richards, who works in Richmor’s charter sales department. “The employees tend to stay a long time, and the customers stay a long time, and I think that’s because of Mahlon’s business attitude – to take care of both.

“We have employees that have been here more than 30 years, which is a long time in aviation, where people used to strive to reach the airlines. I think it just suits families to be in an area like Columbia County in an environment that supports families.”

Family has long been a strong tenet at Richmor. Sharyn’s brother, Michael, works as a mechanic and her husband, Jim Marks, is chief pilot. Several other local families have more than one member working at Richmor.

Mahlon Richards, a low-key personality who prefers to remain behind the scenes, started Richmor with a business partner, Joe Mormando (the Rich and Mor of the company’s name comes from their last names). Mahlon learned to fly, and instruct others in the skill, as an enlisted man in the Air Force, where he met Mormando.

After their stint in the Air Force, the two men worked together at a company like Richmor before joining the flight department of a Glens Falls company then known as Kamyr. Kamyr’s owners supported the 1967 formation of Richmor, both financially and by bringing in clients. In 1995, Kamyr decided to get out of the aviation business, and around the same time was purchased by a foreign company (who by law can’t own a U.S. airline). So Richmor decided to fly solo with Mahlon Richards; Sal Alessi, vice president of maintenance; and several other key employees at the controls. Mahlon had become the business’s sole partner in the early 1990s.

“It all came together at the same time, so it was a good time for Richmor to go out on its own,” explained Sharyn Richards.
Originally, Richards and Mormando intended to base Richmor at the Glens Falls airport, but Glens Falls turned them down. Meanwhile, Columbia County’s new airport on Route 9H in Hudson was getting ready to open. Richmor submitted a bid to become Columbia County Airport’s FBO (fixed base operator) and in 1968 Glens Falls’ loss became our gain. 

Richmor leases space at the airport from the county. The county also receives 50 percent of the fees for planes tied down outside and in the hangars closest to Meadowgreens, plus a flowage fee for each gallon of fuel sold. “We have a great relationship with the county,” added Sharyn Richards.

Richmor does not own most of the planes, which range in size from five-passenger King Airs to a huge Global 5000 that holds 13. Only three of the 15 airplanes flown by Richmor actually belong to the company. Instead, Richmor manages the airplanes owned by some Fortune 100 companies, a couple of which have been customers for more than 20 years.

The aircraft owners pay Richmor a management fee, and Richmor in turn provides pilots, maintenance monitoring and FAA certified maintenance, plus a charter option.

“Richmor acts as their flight department, but also gives them the option, if they choose, to charter their planes to offset the cost of their airplanes,” said Sharyn Richards. Anyone can call up Richmor to charter a flight anywhere in the world. A long list of celebrities has flown on Richmor planes over the years.

Richmor also operates flight schools in Columbia County, Poughkeepsie and Schenectady, and has planes and employees based in four other locations across the country. About 10 years ago, Richmor started working with the local Questar high school vocational program and community colleges in Columbia, Schenectady and Dutchess counties to provide flight instruction classes.

“Our programs with all of those schools are really more of a community service we provide,” Richards explained. “These students basically get to learn to fly for free.” The college students pay a tuition fee, but it is much less than what flying lessons typically cost.

Community service is another important part of Richmor’s mission. The company has made monetary and volunteer contributions to a host of local organizations including the Humane Society, Equine Advocates, Columbia Memorial Hospital, police and rescue squads and various non-profits. Sharyn is active in the Hudson Lions Club and serves on the board of the Columbia-Greene Humane Society. In the past she’s been on the boards of United Way and the Chamber of Commerce.

“We feel it’s important to share our success with the community and our employees. The county has been good to us, and that’s why we stay, and why I participate in community activities,” said Sharyn Richards. “It’s where we’ve lived for 43 years and we like it; it’s where our roots are. Columbia County is a beautiful place to live. We have it all, and at a relatively low cost that allows us to stay competitive with urban areas.”

The Columbia County Chamber of Commerce is proud to have Richmor Aviation as one of our 870 local business members. For more information contact the Chamber at (518) 828-4417 or mail@columbiachamber-ny.com.