Rick Piester resigns Hobbico
 

Rick from FB:

Almost 32 years ago I made a big decision to leave my family's business and join Hobbico. We built it into the biggest company in the hobby industry. I've had a dream career with the company. It has taken me all over the world and allowed me to create some very cool products. I have met and worked with many great people. Today I made another big decision and resigned. Tomorrow I begin a new chapter of my life.

Godspeed Rick.

Good for you, Rick !
I wish you and your whole family a great future.
You/your Father and Mother brought joy to many of us in this hobby for many DECADES.

And Rick/Hobbico brought joy too. Many of us have at least dabbled in R/C. I did for a while and may again when I retire, especially now that modern battery tech will keep me from having to clean caster oil off everything. I've got a classic Klingberg Rocket Wing that I never got around to building.

I'm still heavy into R/C.
The aircraft I fly the most is Hangar9 Phoenix 7 classic ballistic pattern ship.
Without Hobbico it would not exist.

Except, of course, that Hangar 9 is a Horizon brand.....

Good luck to Rick, wherever he chooses to go next.

My bad. Thought it was Hobbico.
I still fly a Hobbico Spectrum pattern plane as well.

Horizon just bought all of Hobbico's RC product lines.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the overlapping product lines. Monokote/Ultracote comes immediately to mind, along with, of course JR/Spektrum vs. Futaba radios. Or, from the direction I would be coming more from in my past life: ElectriFly vs. E-Flite.

I wonder if Rick Piester is thinking of joining Ellis Langford at Estes....? Of course, he could go in a completely different direction as well.

I haven't built any planes the last few years, but I hope Ultracote stays around. It's always been easier for me to use, assuming it's still the same stuff (Oracover). I still have a couple of Futaba radios too. One isn't even a computer radio!

I still use a non-computer late-70s/early-80's Futaba J-series 8JN transmitter.
I also have an ultra-modern color-screen Graupner MZ-24 2.4Ghz Tx as well.