Currently a shareholder and member of the law firm Dentons Sirote in its Huntsville office, Joe H. Ritch is focused on issues related to government contractors in the defense and aerospace industry.
As a young lawyer, Ritch represented LG Electronics, then known as Gold Star, when it brought the first Korean manufacturing facility in the U.S. to Huntsville. He successfully represented such diverse entities as a cable television company against a municipality which blocked a competing company from acquiring it, and assisted Chrysler Technologies in numerous matters involving government affairs before Congress.
Business creation and acquisition captured Ritch’s attention beginning in 1982 when he helped form and located funding of Cybex Corp., a small technology company that developed and sold KVM switches. He served on the board until 1996. Cybex, later renamed Avocent, was ultimately acquired by Emerson Electric in a $1.2 billion purchase.
In 1997, he assisted a management group along with outside investors through the purchase of the Pentastar Electronics Division (PEI Electronics) of Chrysler Corporation. The company was acquired 18 months later by Integrated Defense Technologies (IDT), owned by Veritas Capital in New York. He served on the board of PEI and later the advisory board of IDT.
In 2000, he led a group that acquired Brown International Corp., a defense contractor that engaged in significant international work. The company was sold to AAR in 2007. Ritch served on the board of Brown from its inception in 1985 until it was sold.
He has in recent years served on the boards of CAS, Inc. Axometrics, Inc. and Perkins Technical Services, Inc., and on the advisory board of Boneal Aerospace.
Since 1994, he has led the efforts of the Tennessee Valley Base Realignment and Closure Committee, a coalition of 13 communities, local and state governments, chambers of commerce, and others in north Alabama and south-central Tennessee to relocate the Army’s aviation component from St. Louis, Mo.; in 2005 the TVBRAC effort was successful in moving 4,700 high paying jobs to the region related to missile defense, development and acquisition; and In the last two years, he has led the efforts of the now renamed Redstone Regional Alliance to locate the U.S. Space Command to Redstone.
As a result of the Committee’s work, thousands of military and government contractor jobs were relocated to Redstone Arsenal and the surrounding areas. Furthermore, he worked with state and local officials to obtain funds for the recruitment of workers to fill open positions and a $175 million state-funded investment in K-12 facilities to make the area an attractive place for relocation.
In public service, Ritch has not only been a willing servant but a recognized leader. He served on the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public power provider from 2013 to 2019, sitting as its chair from 2014 until he left the board in 2017. He was the first Alabamian in TVA’s 80-year history to chair the board of TVA, which provides flood control, economic development, recreation facilities navigation, and electricity for over nine million people across the southeastern United States.
He has served as a member of The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees and is a trustee emeritus. He is also chairman of the UAH Eminent Scholars Foundation and a member of the State of Alabama Military Stabilization Committee.
Recognition for his numerous contributions to the Huntsville area includes awards such as the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Service Award in 2003; induction into the North Alabama Business Hall of Fame; U.S. Space Club’s Community Service Award; UAH’s Outstanding Alumni Award in 1982; The Department of the Army’s Commander’s Public Service Award; and he was the recipient of Redstone Arsenal’s Good Neighbor Award, one of the first of three that have been awarded in the history of Redstone Arsenal.
He is considered the founder of UAH hockey (1979) and has been inducted into the UAH Athletic Hall of Honor and the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame. He was the first hockey coach of the club hockey team that would later grow into an NCAA Division 2 National Champion.
Ritch earned his bachelor’s degree from The University of Alabama at Huntsville in 1972, his J.D. from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the law review, and graduated from New York University in 1976 with an LL.M in taxation. He received an honorary doctorate from UAH in 2014.
Born in Selma, he has lived in Huntsville since 1953. Ritch is a member and former trustee of Trinity United Methodist Church in Huntsville and is married to Lana C. Ritch.
