Friends remember well-known Wichita entrepreneur, founder of aviation museum

Ronald D. “Ron” Ryan flew the late U.S. president Gerald Ford, astronaut Neil Armstrong and celebrity Lucille Ball in a charter airline business he owned.

He delivered musician Hank Williams Jr. his airplane with another business he owned.

Ryan died Feb. 27. He was 87.

He is survived by his wife Renae, sons Dale (Kara) and Scott (Rhonda), six grandchildren, 13 grandchildren, siblings and other family.

A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. Thursday at Central Community Church, 6100 West Maple.

Ryan was widely regarded in the Wichita area as a successful and risk-taking entrepreneur, as a pilot and as a volunteer. To those closest to him, he will also be remembered as being fiercely loyal and enriching the lives of his friends.

“I wouldn’t be who I am today if it hadn’t been for his generosity,” said Tim Bonnell Sr., who sold aviation insurance to Ryan in the 1970s. “And then a friendship developed out of that, and he was like a brother to me.”

The two later went into business together and successfully ran an aviation insurance brokerage with worldwide clients, including the late comedian Tommy Smothers.

Ed Sykes said his life was also enriched by Ryan, who he helped with business ventures and played racketball with weekly for years. His youngest daughter, Amanda Sykes, now works for Ryan’s business, Agriboard, which makes houses out of wheat straw that has been hardened using a specialized machine.

“He’s a very loyal person,” said Sykes. “When you work with Ron and you perform with Ron, and he picks up that you are doing as much as you can to make him successful, he is extremely loyal.”

Ryan and Sykes founded the Kansas Aviation Museum, saving the former Wichita air terminal that hosted many famous people as they landed in Wichita, including Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh. The museum brings in roughly 42,000 visitors a year.

“He was passionate about the Wichita aviation community and felt that it deserves a place that would tell that story,” said Ben Sauceda, museum president.

“You know how a boy from Iowa, growing up on a farm, could come to Wichita, the Air Capital, and build a successful air company, was really just a testament to the real, true story of Wichita as a whole.”

Ryan grew his companies from “three employees and annual sales under $200,000 in 1972 to 1,500 employees and sales exceeding $200 million,” according to his obituary.

Sauceda said Ryan built up one of his aviation businesses and sold it, bought it back after it had been beaten down, built it back up and sold it again.

But Ryan’s story isn’t without failure and risk.

‘Faith, hard work, discipline and resilience’

Ryan was born in 1939 in Burlington, Iowa, into a family with modest means and in a “household defined by faith, hard work, discipline, and resilience,” according to an excerpt from his 2021 biography “Making Money Out of Thin Air: My Life as a High Time Pilot.” He was the third of seven children.

He spent a lot of time working on his grandparents’ farm. His grandfather changed his mind from wanting to work on the railroad to becoming a pilot.

“Whatever you do in life, love what you do,” he said in a 2018 interview as part of a series that talks with entrepreneurs. “If you are working just for the buck, just for money, this life is very short and it goes by fast. I used to hear it all the time as a kid and I just thought it was so much malarkey. Well, I am now 78 years old. I am so old, I don’t even buy green bananas anymore.”

He went on to give a definition of success.

“It’s the progressive realization of the accomplishment of any worthwhile goal,” he said. “In other words, you have to set a goal … a worthwhile goal and then each day work towards accomplishing that goal. Success in life is the journey, not the accomplishment of the goal.”

After high school, he worked as a machinist and eventually got an opportunity to fly in a small aircraft. He soloed after just six hours of instruction, which was “both terrifying and transcendent,” the autobiography says.

“From that moment on, aviation was not just a career path but a calling,” the autobiography says. “Ron traded possessions for lessons and took flying jobs that paid little but offered experience.”

He parlayed those life experiences into launching Ryan Aviation Corporation and later, Ryan International Airlines.

His companies obtained government contracts and flew celebrities, politicians and Kentucky Derby horses. He also flew tuna from Guam to Japan, getting the fresh and highly sought-after delicacy to market while it was still fresh.

Along the way, he logged a lot of flight hours.

“His career eventually spanned over 30,000 flight hours—roughly three times the career average of many airline captains,” his autobiography says. “He flew cargo, passengers, charters, and military contracts. He navigated icing conditions, mechanical failures, lightning strikes, and emergency landings.”

Ryan had always joked that when he met God face to face, God’s first question would be: ‘Ryan, do you know how many angels I used up on you?’” the autobiography says.

One of the “defining highlights of Ron’s aviation career” came in 1988, when he participated in a round-the-world speed record flight aboard a Boeing 747SP, the autobiography says.

The flight was done in just over 36 hours, averaging around 685 mph.

Opening a museum, serving Wichita community

Sykes said he met Ryan after joining the philanthropic group Wichita Wagonmasters in 1986.

In 2014, Ryan was the Riverfest’s Admiral Windwagon Smith 41, an annual title given to people for extraordinary service to the Wichita area.

Sykes and Ryan were also board members with the Wichita Aeronautical Historical Association and had the idea of turning Wichita’s former airport, on the verge of being destroyed, into the Kansas Aviation Museum.

During its heyday in the 1040s, that airport was the fourth busiest in the country, with a flight taking off or landing every 90 seconds, Sauceda told Flying Magazine.

It also was a special place to Sykes, who left from the airport in 1968 to serve as a fighter pilot in southeast Asia.

The airport became part of McConnell Air Force Base in 1951 and was abandoned in 1984, according to the museum’s history.

The National Guard was getting ready to demolish it, Sykes said, so he and Ryan flew on Ryan’s Learjet to D.C.

“Nobody really decided they wanted it, but Ron and I flew out … and told the National Guard that we wanted to make that the aviation museum,” Sykes said.

The two, along with the late Skeets Winkler, a City Council member and Wichita Aeronautical Historical Association board member, arranged for the city to take possession of the building and rent it to the museum for $1 a year.

“Volunteers entered the building in the late 1980s with wheelbarrows and shovels and began the arduous cleaning task,” according to the museum’s history. “The museum opened on April 19, 1991, to showcase Kansas aviation history.”

The Wichita Wagonmasters helped in the cleaning, Sykes said. He said Ryan also was generous in his donations to get the museum to where it is today.

Through it all, Sykes said, Ryan’s wife, Renae, was someone he personally relied on for her input in business affairs. She has taken over running the Agriboard business the last several years, he said.

“Ron just stands back and gets out of her way,” he said. “She’s a sharp lady.”

Sauceda said some of his most recent memories with Ron Ryan are some of his fondest. In August, he had just a few days notice to get ready to take in foster children at his home.

Ryan told him to give him the bill for whatever he needed.

“And a week later, I had the check,” Sauceda said, adding other museum board members kicked in as well. “(Ryan) gave and he gave in those cases without question.”

The other time was in December, the last time he talked with Ryan. The museum honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Ryan told him it was the best the museum had ever been.

“I haven’t always agreed with your decisions, but they were your decisions to make and you’ve done a great job,” Sauceda said Ryan told him. “He was a kind man. He was also a blunt man. He didn’t mind telling you what he thought … He was also very complimentary and very genuine in how he handled those things.”

Sykes said he is going to miss his dear friend.

‘He was such a comfortable person to be around. You could joke with him. You could have fun with him. Just a great dude,” Sykes said. “I’m gonna miss you. I miss him already.”

Besides volunteering with more than 15 different groups and organizations, he was also an honorary colonel of McConnell Air Force Base and received numerous awards, including the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award and inclusion in the Kansas Aviation Hall of Fame.