There is a stretch of Warren, Ohio where nearly everything carries the same name. A country club, a med spa, a dermatology practice, and the corporate headquarters that ties them all together on one 5.6-acre parcel. All of it belongs to Avalon Holdings (AWX), a public company built over decades by Ronald E. Klingle and his wife, Frances R. Klingle.
Avalon generated $38.6 million in revenue in the first half of 2026 and carries book value near $9.75 per share. Its roots lie in industrial waste services, where Ron brought a chemical-engineering and operating background and Frances handled accounting and administration at the predecessor company long before Avalon became public. Together, they used that base to buy, restore, and operate recreation landmarks across the Mahoning Valley.
Where Avalon Came From
The roots run back to American Waste Services, Inc. (AWS), the company Ron Klingle founded and Frances Klingle helped run before Avalon existed. In June 1990, AWS purchased 5.6 acres in Warren and constructed an office building. Next door sat the Avalon Lakes Golf Course, an 18-hole Pete Dye design, and AWS acquired that too. From the very beginning, then, the office and the golf course shared a fence line. The clubhouse, restaurant, golf simulators, and pro shop were part of the same footprint as the corporate desks.
The operating businesses came together over the middle of the decade. In 1995, American Waste Management Services, Inc. (AWMS) began offering waste disposal brokerage and management. In 1997, American Landfill Management, Inc. (ALMI) started managing a captive landfill for an industrial customer. Both were folded into a new entity, Avalon Holdings, which AWS created on April 30, 1998 and then distributed to its shareholders as a special dividend on June 17, 1998. That spin-off is the moment Avalon became a standalone public company, carrying with it a waste business and a golf course.
For the next 25 years, the Klingles used the cash the waste business produced to build the second half of the company one property at a time.
Building the Country Club, One Acquisition at a Time
The expansion reads like a map of the region’s recreation landmarks being brought under one roof:
- November 2003: A subsidiary leased the Squaw Creek Country Club in Vienna, Ohio on a long-term agreement, with four ten-year renewal options that Avalon alone controls. The same year, Avalon created the Avalon Golf and Country Club to manage all of its courses under one membership.
- October 2006: Avalon acquired the Sharon Country Club in Sharon, Pennsylvania, then renovated the clubhouse and added recreational facilities.
- August 2014: Avalon bought the Magnuson Grand Hotel in Howland, Ohio and renamed it The Grand Resort. This became the centerpiece amenity, with a hotel, indoor and outdoor pools, a Roman Bath, restaurants, a spa, a cigar lounge, and banquet space, all located next to the original Warren headquarters and golf course.
- March 2018: Avalon acquired the Boardman Tennis Center and reopened it as the Avalon Athletic Club at Boardman, a multipurpose center with tennis, basketball, volleyball, and pickleball.
- May 2019: Avalon purchased the New Castle Country Club in Pennsylvania and reopened it as the Avalon Field Club at New Castle.
- March 2021: Avalon opened the Avalon Med Spa in Warren, offering nonsurgical aesthetic services.
- March 2024: Avalon added Avalon Dermatology, a practice run by a board-licensed dermatologist.
The organizing idea behind all of this is a single membership. A member of the Avalon Golf and Country Club pays annual dues and receives access across the whole network: four golf courses, the resort, the athletic club, and the spa services. The resort feeds the country club, offering hotel guests golf packages, and the country club feeds the resort. The Klingles have spent 20 years assembling a set of properties that most people in the Mahoning Valley would recognize by name, and stitching them into one experience.
It is worth pausing on what this represents. Many of these properties were established local institutions that needed capital and attention. Avalon bought them, renovated them, and kept them running as going concerns with local employees. As of December 31, 2025, the golf and related operations employed 744 of Avalon’s 799 people. In a region that has absorbed decades of industrial decline, that is a meaningful base of local employment tied to hospitality and recreation rather than to the fortunes of a single factory.
How the Company Actually Makes Money
Avalon reports in two segments, and they could hardly be more different in character.
The waste management services segment is the quiet earner. It is a brokerage. Avalon does not own landfills or a fleet of trucks. Instead, AWMS profiles a customer’s waste, arranges laboratory testing, inspects the generating process, and matches the material to an approved and cost-effective disposal site. Because a waste generator remains legally liable for its waste even after it leaves the door, customers pay for the assurance that the material is handled correctly. This segment brought in about 55% of revenue in both 2025 and 2024, and it does so with only 32 employees. It is asset-light, and it is the profit center.
The golf and related operations segment is the labor of love. It accounted for the other 45% of revenue in 2025 and holds the overwhelming majority of the company’s employees, its real estate, and its capital needs. Running four golf courses, a resort hotel, an athletic club, and spa and dermatology practices is a people-intensive, capital-intensive undertaking. The golf courses also sit in northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania, so the season is short and the weather matters a great deal to results.
Put the two together and the picture for the first half of 2026 looks like this:
| Segment | H1 2026 pre-tax result | Employees | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Waste management | +$2.2M | 32 | Asset-light brokerage, the earner |
| Golf and related | +$24K | 744 | Capital-intensive, near breakeven |
| Corporate | ($2.6M) | 23 | Overhead and interest |
| Consolidated | ($0.4M) | 799 | Roughly breakeven |
The waste business earns roughly $4 million a year before tax on minimal capital. The golf and resort operations run close to breakeven at the property level, and corporate overhead plus interest brings the consolidated figure to around zero. The company also carries large deferred tax assets against a full valuation allowance, so it pays little cash tax on incremental profit.
Seasonality is central to reading the numbers. The first quarter is always a loss because the golf courses are closed for the Ohio winter, and the third quarter is the peak. Anyone looking at a single quarter in isolation will draw the wrong conclusion.
The Financial Picture
The balance sheet at June 30, 2026 tells you where the money has gone. It is in the ground and the buildings.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cash | $4.8M |
| Restricted cash (project fund) | $8.2M |
| Property and equipment, net | $53.1M |
| Total assets | $87.6M |
| Term loan, gross | $28.7M |
| Line of credit | $3.2M |
| Finance leases | $1.5M |
| Total interest-bearing debt | $33.4M |
| Shareholders’ equity (Avalon) | $38.0M |
| Book value per share | $9.75 |
The term loan is fixed at 6.0% through 2029, then resets at a capped rate, and it amortizes toward a balloon payment due in 2032. The company was in compliance with its fixed-charge coverage covenant. Net debt sits around $28.6 million counting only unrestricted cash, or closer to $20 million if the restricted project fund, which is available for capital projects and debt service, is included.
The most important line for an outside investor is the equity: $38 million of book value, most of it represented by $53 million of property, against $33 million of debt.
Ron Klingle: The Technical Founder and Operator
Ron Klingle is the operational architect and technical engine behind Avalon Holdings. Raised in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Hickory High School in 1965 before earning a Bachelor of Engineering in chemical engineering from Youngstown State University in 1970.
His early career provided the technical foundation in environmental services and waste management that would ultimately define Avalon’s core profit engine. Following engineering roles at Cyclops’ Sawhill Tubular Division and regional leadership at Browning-Ferris Industries, Klingle owned and operated Industrial Waste Mill Service in Pittsburgh through 1981. He subsequently founded AWS in Liberty, Ohio, applying his technical background in field operations, industrial treatment, and waste disposal to build the business that later birthed Avalon Holdings in 1998.
Klingle exercises outright voting control of Avalon through its dual-class equity structure. He holds 99.9% of the Class B common stock, which grants ten votes per share and elects three of the five board directors. This awards him approximately 67% of the company’s total voting power despite holding an economic stake of roughly 20%.
Under his leadership, capital allocation has centered on local enterprise building rather than personal liquidity. His executive compensation sat at approximately $255,000 in 2025—remarkably modest for a public-company CEO. Rather than authorizing dividends or share repurchases, Klingle has funneled cash generated by the waste-brokerage operations and structured private placements (including VIEs) directly into acquiring, renovating, and preserving regional real estate and recreation assets.
Now approaching 80, Klingle faces the question of long-term succession. Avalon has introduced non-family leadership. Notably CFO Michael Havalo, who joined in 2023, but no next-generation family members currently serve as executives or directors. Because his Class B super-voting shares automatically convert to single-vote Class A shares if transferred outside the family, any eventual sale to a third party would dismantle the dual-class structure, leaving the long-term control of the company tied directly to the path chosen for his estate.
Frances Klingle: The Financial and Administrative Anchor
While Ron provided the engineering and industrial foundation, Frances Klingle built the administrative and financial framework required to scale the business from a private local outfit into a publicly traded holding company.
Frances earned a Bachelor of Arts in French from Kent State University before completing postgraduate coursework in accounting at Youngstown State University. Her operational tenure predates Avalon’s public listing by more than a decade: by June 1986, she was serving as controller of predecessor company AWS.
When Avalon Holdings was spun off as a standalone public company in 1998, Frances transitioned directly into executive leadership. She served as Avalon’s corporate controller through April 2002 while simultaneously taking on the role of Chief Administrative Officer at the company’s founding. She has served continuously as CAO ever since, overseeing the corporate, reporting, and internal operating machinery for over 25 years.
Though public records offer few personal details about her origins or early life, they document a multi-decade operating partnership alongside Ron. Her stewardship on the administrative side enabled Avalon to expand far beyond its initial waste brokerage footprint, absorbing capital-intensive acquisitions across hospitality, recreation, and health services.
Alongside Ron, Frances represents the operational half of a family block that owns roughly one-fifth of Avalon by value while steering its strategic direction. With both founders nearing 80 and neither having installed family successors within the corporate hierarchy, her eventual retirement alongside Ron will mark a pivotal transition point for Avalon’s corporate identity and operational stability.
What Avalon Might Be Worth
Because the consolidated company earns close to zero after interest, an earnings multiple does not tell you much. The more useful lens is the value of the pieces: a steady waste brokerage and a collection of recreation real estate, less the debt supporting those assets.
The waste business earns around $4M a year before tax with little capital tied up. A brokerage with customer concentration and a fragmented, competitive market does not command a premium multiple. A reasonable range is 5 to 10 times pre-tax earnings, or roughly $20M to $40M.
The golf and resort assets are harder to value. Property and equipment stood at $53.1M at June 30, 2026. As operating businesses, the properties run close to breakeven, so their value as a going concern may be below replacement cost. Their real-estate value depends heavily on the buyer, the intended use, and the local market. A reasonable range runs from $15M in a difficult sale to $50M in a favorable asset-realization case.
For this analysis, I use the conservative net-debt figure throughout. At June 30, 2026, Avalon had $33.4M of gross interest-bearing debt and $4.8M of unrestricted cash, producing net debt of $28.6M. The company also held $8.2M of restricted cash in a project fund, but that money is designated for lender-approved capital projects and is not treated here as cash available to equity holders.
| Scenario | Waste business | Golf and real estate | Enterprise value | Less net debt | Equity value | Per share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bear | $20M | $15M | $35M | $28.6M | $6.4M | $1.64 |
| Base | $30M | $32M | $62M | $28.6M | $33.4M | $8.57 |
| Bull | $40M | $50M | $90M | $28.6M | $61.4M | $15.75 |
The base case lands modestly below reported book value of $9.75 per share. That reflects the fact that much of Avalon’s book value sits in golf courses, resort facilities, and related property. Those assets may be worth their carrying value over a long operating life, but the current earnings do not demonstrate that value in a sale or as standalone operating businesses.
The bull case requires two things to go right. The waste brokerage must support a $40M valuation, and the golf, resort, and real-estate portfolio must realize $50M of value. That is an asset-realization case, not a valuation based on the company’s current consolidated earnings. The bear case reflects what the golf assets might bring in a difficult or forced sale, after the debt is paid.
These figures estimate the value of the underlying assets. A minority shareholder’s ability to realize that value depends on the controlling family’s decisions. The Klingles have consistently chosen to reinvest in and expand the operating portfolio rather than distribute cash. An investor therefore owns a share of the assets alongside a long-term, family-led capital-allocation strategy. The assets have value, but the timeline and mechanism for turning that value into cash for outside shareholders remain uncertain.
The Honest Risks
A fair profile names the risks plainly:
- Concentration. One customer accounted for 18% of the waste segment’s external revenue in 2025, and the captive landfill serves a single customer.
- Weather and seasonality. The golf season is short and weather-dependent, and the first quarter is reliably a loss.
- The injection wells. Avalon’s two salt water injection wells have been suspended by Ohio regulators since 2014, and in April 2026 the Ohio Supreme Court ruled against the company’s claim for compensation. The site’s future is under review.
- Debt maturity. The term loan amortizes toward a balloon in 2032, and refinancing carries a prepayment penalty.
- Capital intensity. The resort and club properties require ongoing investment, and management has acknowledged that membership targets have been challenging to hit.
None of these change the basic character of the company. They are the ordinary frictions of running real, physical businesses in a specific place.
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What to Watch
| Catalyst | Why It Matters | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 2026 earnings | Peak golf season, the quarter that shows the business at its best | November 2026 |
| Succession and governance signals | Both founders are near 80 with no family successor in management; any signal on the plan is material | Ongoing |
| Injection well site decision | Resolves a long-running question after the 2026 Ohio Supreme Court ruling | 2026 to 2027 |
| Membership trends at the country club | The single membership model is the engine of the golf segment | Each annual report |
| Resort and Squaw Creek capital projects | Ongoing investment; watch for a return on the spending | 2026 to 2027 |
Sources:
- Avalon Holdings 10-K for fiscal year 2025, filed March 19, 2026
- Avalon Holdings 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, filed August 7, 2026
- Avalon Holdings Proxy Statement (DEF 14A), filed March 20, 2026
- Avalon Holdings 10-K for fiscal year 2005, filed March 24, 2006
- “Bitonte College Honors a Dozen Alumni, Faculty, Staff,” Business Journal Daily
Research and analysis conducted with AI assistance using SEC EDGAR filings as primary sources.