Steve Townes, CEO & Founder, Ranger Aerospace
PHOENIX, April 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Phoenix Defense LLC, a steadily growing technology-enabled market leader in highly specialized government services, engineering, and manufacturing, has a proven and measurably excellent management and leadership team, plus an exceptional corporate governance and ownership team.
The Board of Directors includes four General Officers, two very senior CEOs, and three national-level capital markets leaders. Board member Steve Townes personifies what we mean when we say, “high-performance culture.” He joined our Board in early 2020 after strategically assisting with and co-investing in our aggressive recapitalization and simultaneous merger with Riptide Software. Since then, Townes has been an experienced entrepreneurial voice in our boardroom, bringing decades of experience as the CEO & founder of Ranger Aerospace. In the past 6 years since that pivotal shift, Phoenix Defense has approximately tripled in size, depth, and capabilities on behalf of its customers and employees.
Under Steve’s leadership for 3 decades, Ranger Aerospace has a strong record of buy-and-build mergers and acquisitions, technology investments, facility expansions, and international scalar growth. Steve has been CEO and Board member for all of Ranger’s accelerated growth platforms, plus additional previous outside board roles in Precision Aviation Group and SC Aerospace. He began his distinguished industry career in the 1980’s at LTV Aerospace & Defense.
Townes is a 1975 engineering graduate of West Point, where he won the Eisenhower Award upon graduation. He earned an MBA at Long Island Univ., and is an alumnus of the “PMD” post-MBA resident program at Harvard Business School. Ranger Aerospace has employed thousands of personnel over the years, always with a laser focus on culture and transformational leadership. Townes is a former airborne infantry officer in the 1st Ranger Battalion, and is the mules donor in perpetuity for West Point’s iconic stadium mascots.
Chairman of Phoenix Defense, Benjamin Chereskin, said, “Steve’s industrial track record, strategic vision, and focused energy are accelerants in our governance playbook. He materially helped us with the initial acquisition and has been a stalwart contributor ever since.”
About Phoenix Defense
Phoenix Defense LLC. includes Phoenix Logistics, Inc., PLI Manufacturing and Riptide Software. Phoenix Defense is an agile provider of engineering, manufacturing, information technology, and logistics & supply chain services to the defense, space, aerospace, and industrial markets. The company is made up of talented experts, with years of defense and industry experience, who reliably solve technical and programmatic problems related to aerospace design and manufacturing, as well as complex logistical challenges related to delivery of critical infrastructure (Medical, Energy, IT and Transportation).
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SOURCE Phoenix Defense LLC
