Steve Townes is a well-known CEO entrepreneur in the aerospace services industry. His private equity holding company, Ranger Aerospace, was founded in early 1997 and went on to do hundreds of millions in various successful buyouts and consolidations. Townes always practiced a principled, quality-centered approach toward management, seeking always to be a good employer. Ranger’s enterprises won awards for quality and safety, and earned ISO-9000 certifications and FAA “Diamond” recognitions. By 2014, his most notable corporate build-ups were “ASIG” (Aircraft Service International Group), Keystone Helicopter, and Ranger International Services. Ranger employed as many as 4,250 people at 56 aviation locations in North America and Europe. Each large enterprise was ultimately sold to huge strategic buyers, yielding as much as 60% “IRR” to investors, even during the Great Recession. Townes is a 1975 West Point engineering graduate, earned an MBA in 1980 from Long Island Univ., and is a 1985 alumnus of “PMD” at Harvard Business School. Prior to launching Ranger Aerospace, Townes had senior executive positions in Stevens Aviation, Sabreliner Corp, and LTV Aerospace & Defense. Prior to entering industry in 1980, he served as an Army officer in the 1st/75th Ranger Battalion. Townes earned the Eisenhower Award upon graduation from the U.S. Military Academy, and was the #1 graduate from the Army’s Ranger School. He also trained with the Lanceros, the counter-guerilla forces of Colombia, South America. Townes is the “mule donor in perpetuity” for the football stadium animal mascots of West Point. Steve Townes was born in September 1952 in Anchorage, Alaska.