Richard Kahn Has Had Ink in His Veins and Salt Water in His Blood His Whole Life

By Kekeletso Nkele, small.news Assistant

(small.news) — Richard Kahn says he thinks he has gills under his arms. Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, he was swimming at two, competing in AAU meets by seven, and surfing local ESA tournaments as a teenager. At 67, he still paddles out when the waves are not too gnarly. His wife, Elizabeth, still walks the beach each year, counting sea turtle nests.

The water is not a hobby for Kahn. It is the through-line of his entire life — personal, professional, and now entrepreneurial.

A Career Built On Print

Kahn has been in publishing since before he could drive. He delivered the Palm Beach Post-Times as a newspaper boy at thirteen, won a trip to Switzerland and Austria for signing up new subscribers, wrote for the Palm Beach Times as a stringer while at Florida Atlantic University, and graduated with a degree in Communications in 1980. His first job out of university was as editor of a local weekly, covering town council meetings, the police blotter, and local events.

By 1984, he had moved into sales management for Ideal Publications, and when the owner opened a business next door, Kahn became a partner in the publications side. What started as tiny ads on golf scorecards and tide charts grew into full-color, high-gloss yachting and country club lifestyle magazines running up and down the U.S. East Coast.

He went solo in 1995, freelanced for Momentec Publications for over a decade selling ads in golf and yachting publications, eventually ran their sales operation, and in 2016 launched his own company — RSK Media Consulting LLC, trading as Aqua View Media. He currently publishes Yachting & Sportfishing Guides and The Golfer’s Journal across high-end luxury markets stretching from Key West, Florida, to Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Four decades in, he is still selling. Even through high inflation and consumer anxiety, he continues to place affordable advertising for small business owners who want to reach yacht owners, waterfront homeowners, and private club members. The audience is loyal. The publications reach them where they actually are.

The Next Thing: The Florida Aquatic

Kahn is not coasting. His next venture, The Florida Aquatic, is an aquatic wellness and adventure guide built around a purpose he has carried since his twenties: preserve and enhance the marine environment, promote aquatic health, and spread joy on and around the water.

That purpose is not abstract for him. In his mid-twenties, he chaired the Palm Beach County Surfrider Foundation and launched a local water-testing program through the Blue Water Task Force. The work led the Palm Beach County Commission to ban incoming vessels from emptying their bilges at the Port of Palm Beach — a tangible environmental win from community-level advocacy. He later appeared before the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission to push for a ban on shark feeding by SCUBA dive boat operators. It passed.

The Florida Aquatic is, in some ways, that same instinct applied to publishing. The goal is to serve aquatic communities with practical information — tide charts, navigational guides, marine safety tips, environmental news, event schedules — while building a platform that can eventually scale to other water-rich states like California, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, and ultimately attract global investment.

Kahn is intentional about one thing: he wants to keep it human. His plan deliberately avoids heavy AI integration, favoring hiring real people from the regional and cultural aquatic communities his publications will serve. The technology he uses will handle the operational basics — expense tracking, ROI reporting for advertisers — and the rest will be built by people who know the water.

The Infrastructure Behind The Ambition

To pursue government publishing contracts — tide charts, navigational publications, marine safety materials — Kahn has been working through the federal contractor registration process. He has received a Unique Entity ID from SAM.gov. He is working through the steps to secure his CAGE code and NAICS classifications, with target agencies including the Department of Education, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, and others.

He has also connected with SCORE Palm Beach County, where he has been assigned a certified mentor, Paul Smyth, whom he met in person at his local library. For a business owner navigating government contracting for the first time, that kind of structured guidance matters.

What Drives Him

Kahn’s motivations are straightforward and personal. He wants to make a positive environmental impact, support his family, and give back to the small business owners whose advertising dollars he has carried for forty years — by delivering real, measurable returns, not just page space.

Mostly, he wants to keep doing work that connects people to the water. The beach, the inlet, the reef, the estuary — these are not backdrops for Richard Kahn. They are the point.

At 67, with four decades of print behind him and a new publication ahead, he is still paddling out.

---

Running a small business can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Become part of a global network of small business owners through silv=r™ by Silver Lining. Sign up now!