Robert Peach

Robert English Peach (9 March 1920 – 20 April 1971) as founder-president of Mohawk Airlines grew Mohawk from a tiny air taxi service carrying 1,200 passengers between Ithaca and New York in 1945 to a major regional airline which carried 1.7 million passengers over an extensive network in the northeastern United States in 1969.

Peach was born 9 March 1920 in Syracuse, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, in 1941. He enrolled in the University of Chicago Law School in the fall of 1941, but withdrew to enlist in the Navy early in 1942. After pilot training he served with distinction in the Pacific, rising in rank to lieutenant commander, commanding a squadron of aircraft, and earning two Distinguished Flying Crosses and other medals for valor.

In 1945 Peach resumed law studies at Cornell University, and took a part-time pilot position with fledgling Robinson Airlines, then operating two Fairchild F-24s and two Cessna T-50s in scheduled air taxi service between Ithaca and New York. Within a few years Peach was executive vice president and general manager, Robinson had grown in route structure, acquired DC-3 aircraft to handle the increasing passenger load, and changed its name to Mohawk Airlines.