Wright Brothers USA co-founder dies

David Lightle, chief executive and co-founder of Dayton-based Wright Brothers USA, LLC, died this weekend while visiting China, according to colleagues and family members.

“Grieving the loss of one of my The Wright Brothers Store business partners, Dave Lightle,” a Wright Brothers USA principal, Kenneth Botts, wrote Sunday on Facebook. “With an impressive list of educational credentials and world travels, one would never know it by his approachable personality and down-to-earth kindness. The ability to share in his visionary discussions will be sorely missed.”

Lightle, Botts and Doug Knopp founded The Wright Brothers USA LLC, guiding the licensing of the Wright brothers’ name and images to sell carefully selected products — mainly bicycles and watches — for two years before staring the online commerce site, TheWrightBrothersStore.com.

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TheWrightBrothersStore.com went live in May 2015, opening to orders for flight jackets, luggage, sunglasses and more from around the world. Most of the products are made in the U.S.

“R.I.P. Dave Lightle,” Knopp wrote on Facebook this weekend. “You have been and will always be a big influence in my life. You were one of a kind. Friend.”

In a June 2015 interview, Lightle told the Dayton Daily News that his company was proceeding carefully and deliberately.

“The main thing is protecting the integrity of the (Wright) name,” he said. “We can’t afford to have any big foul-ups, either operationally or making any mistakes in communications about the Wright brothers.

“The Wright family doesn’t approve everything that we do,” he added. “But we do keep them informed; we do show them things as we go, as a courtesy. They cannot be involved on the business side as a foundation (the Wright Family Foundation). We straddle that fence every appropriately, aware of the legalities of it.”

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