Celebrate!
Townsend and our incredible Partners are no strangers to media coverage and awards, but it is especially fun when they both happen in the same week.
The FM Champer named our very own HR superstar, Ashly Capobianco as the winner of the Community Service award!
2025 Fulton Montgomery Chamber Annual Member Awards 
“We’re extremely excited to announce the outstanding individuals and businesses that make our community thrive. This year, we honor those whose hard work, dedication, and innovation have significantly contributed to the continued growth and prosperity of our region.
Let’s take a moment to recognize the incredible achievements of our award recipient:
The Herbert T. Singer Community Service Award is awarded to: Ashley Capobianco, of Townsend Leather – Recognizing her selfless dedication to enhancing the quality of life in our community.
These individuals and businesses represent the best of what our Chamber stands for. Please join us in congratulating all the winners! They will be recognized at our Fulton Montgomery Regional Chamber Business Expo & Annual Awards Celebration on April 3!“
In the same week, Townsend Leather was also featured in the newspaper, The Leader Herald.
The Leader Herald reached out to our SR VP of Sales & Marketing, Sarah Eckler. Townsend Leather has been in the “leather-making region” of New York state for over 55 years, and the journalists at The Leader Herald wanted to capture some of the changes over the years to the industry and highlight how Townsend Leather is not only still standing but is, in fact, thriving. You can see the article below and plainly see the passion Sarah has for this work nd the people of Townsend Leather.
Johnstown, NY
Sarah Kucel Eckler, Townsend Leather — Outlook 2025
It seemed to happen almost overnight.
Once, Fulton County was home to a thriving leather industry, with large tanneries and glove-making shops employing nearly 80% of residents. But because environmental regulations, offshore markets and other forces, tanneries began shuttering their doors. By the 1980s, the once-vibrant leather business had faded into obscurity.
Not all of it, however.
Townsend Leather, a family-owned business, survived the purge, and today is alive and well. After four generations, the business — founded in 1969 by the Kucel family — provides goods for airliner interiors, retail applications and hospitality functions. Townsend products are produced inside a facility at 4 Grove St. in Johnstown.
“We look like a different company today in terms of what we produced back in the ’70s and ’80s,” said Sarah Kucel Eckler, Townsend’s senior vice president for sales and marketing. “It was high volume. Leather was more of a commodity. We were running as much square feet as we could produce in a year.”
Eckler’s father took over the business in the early 1980s after her grandfather unexpectedly died.
The business survived the exodus of work overseas by finding niche markets to service. Eckler credits her father and mother for realizing the company could survive by working with major airliners. In addition, Eckler’s grandfather created a unique five-stage spray line that her father used to create colors for the leather.
“We were in touch with a designer that could no longer source leather anymore from where they were getting it for a head-of-state project that the people that were buying the plane were very particular [about],” she said. “For one week [the team] worked around the clock, perfecting these colors. We sent our samples and they improved them, and so then we got that business.”
Eckler said that after that particular project the business gained more clientele via word of mouth. As more technology came about for private planes, clients wanted more customization options for the interior.
“Cessna came on board with us in the ’90s and then Gulfstream, and now we work with all the major aircraft OEMs,” she said.
Eckler added that being flexible and producing custom colors, finishes and effects gave the company an edge, since their competitors who don’t make their own leather — instead they stock it — faced long lead times from suppliers and high minimums. For example, if a client wanted a custom purple leather, they would have to purchase at least 3,000 feet. At Townsend, they’ll make one hide if needed.
“Our customers are very demanding, as you can imagine. Someone that’s buying a bombardier global that costs $80 million doesn’t want imperfections in their leather,” Eckler said. “It’s kind of a high-stress job, but I think everyone at Townsend has a passion for leathermaking and having fun, and taking so much pride in what [we] do.”
To produce its products, Townsend uses humanely raised, free-range animals that are allowed to mature naturally. The company also has a unique cutting program that is intended to reduce waste during the process.
Eckler said that on average the company produces 3 to 4 million square feet in a year. The company currently employs more than 150 people. Townsend buys the raw material for its leather from southern Germany, where it’s tanned before being shipped to the Townsend facility. Currently Townsend’s biggest seller is what it calls the “classic cow hide,” but in reality it’s German bull hides.
“We do everything — from the aniline dyeing, embossing, finishing,” Eckler said. “Some products have a hand-tipping effect, pearlized finishes, antiques — pretty much anything you can think of. We also are offering a cutting service for some of our larger customers that have repetitive cuts.”
Eckler wasn’t always sure she wanted to join the family business. However, when the company nearly went bankrupt in the 1980s and ’90s, she saw how much work her parents were putting into the company to help it survive. She officially joined the company in 2001.
Since then Eckler has seen Townsend’s products reach all over the world, from Dubai to Las Vegas. She added that the company is always looking for new blood to continue its leathermaking traditions.
“We’re always looking for people that want to learn, grow with the company and learn the craftsmanship side of it,” she said. “But there’s that aspect to it, for sure, because you can’t learn coloring or dyeing overnight. But there’s a lot of new technology that we’re taking advantage of with color spectrometers to read out colors, and [we have] the new machines we have for cutting and quilting. We definitely want to keep up with technology so we need people that are computer-savvy nowadays.”
Eckler said she is proud of Townsend Leather’s legacy in the region and likened the employees at the company to her family.
“Whether it’s in a home or a hotel or a boat, it’s pretty neat what we do here in Fulton County,” she said. “We’re just really proud to keep up the leathermaking tradition of this area, [and] we intend to keep doing that.”