Rider Jet Center Hosts Annual Hangarfest and Aviation Career Expo, Supporting Hagerstown Community Causes
Why It MattersFBOs that fund career pipelines and local causes tie their airport presence to workforce supply and community goodwill, a growing part of how independent operators differentiate themselves beyond fuel and hangar services.
Rider Jet Center, a full-service fixed-base operator at Hagerstown Regional Airport in Hagerstown, Maryland, pairs its aviation business with community giving. Each September it clears a hangar of aircraft to host Hangarfest, which draws more than 500 people, and often more than 1,000, for live music, food trucks and fundraising. The Jill Fulton Band opens the evening, followed by headliner The Reagan Years. The company has hosted the event for 15 years as an annual fundraiser for Breast Cancer Awareness Inc., a local nonprofit.
On November 6, the company will donate hangar space for the 20th Annual Aviation Education & Career Expo, which connects high school and college students with aviation professionals from nearly 70 organizations and offers more than $275,000 in scholarships from event sponsors. More than 1,300 aspiring aviation students attended in 2025, making it the largest event of its kind in the Mid-Atlantic. The expo has awarded more than $2 million in scholarships to date, including the David Rider Legacy Scholarship.
The company was founded in 2003 by the late David Rider, a developer, aviation enthusiast and philanthropist. Since his death in 2019, his son Ben Rider, president and CEO, has run it and continued its philanthropy. Ben Rider said giving back is part of his DNA and that his father taught him to help whenever possible. Regular beneficiaries include Breast Cancer Awareness Inc., the Hagerstown Aviation Museum, and public education and arts initiatives.
Rider Jet Center also provides internships, job-shadowing and donations to the Hagerstown campus of the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics, and contributed storage space for construction materials for its recent expansion. Alongside in-kind contributions, it has made cash donations of tens of thousands of dollars so far in 2026. It donates fuel to the Hagerstown Aviation Museum, which is housed in the 1943 Fairchild Aircraft Flight Test Hangar and the 1945 Executive Hangar and holds the world's largest collection of historic Fairchild aircraft.
