May 14, 2019 Abindgon Mullin and her watches

The Liberty Gazette

May 14, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Abingdon Mullin is afraid of heights. She climbed Mount Kilimanjaro—its peak at 19,341’—because she is not afraid of a challenge.

In a conversation with other female pilots, the topic came around to wristwatches. Why were all the aviator watches made for men? Women would love to have technical watches, but they didn’t want to wear a man’s watch. Abingdon seized the moment. The Abingdon Co. makes watches for adventuresome women.

When I first met her about a decade ago, she had just launched Abingdon Watches with two models, the Jackie and the Amelia. But the market of female aviators is small. Researching how to make her product scalable before appearing on the TV show Shark Tank, Abingdon polled her customers to find out what else they liked to do. The most popular answer was scuba diving. This was an important discovery for her business. Millions of women scuba dive. In broadening her market, she now has watches for women scuba divers.

The company offers 60 different versions of Abingdon watches, and with all the choices of bands, there are about 230 different options. In October, the new watch inspired by NASCAR racer Julia Landauer will debut. You can shop at TheAbingdonCo.com.

Selling watches has become her primary job, but she still runs her ferry pilot business because flying is her passion, and she says she would be impossible to live with if she didn’t fly.

U.S. Air Force Col. Laurel Burkel bought her first Abingdon watch at a Women in Aviation International conference. Two years ago, she told Abingdon she would turn 50 in 2018 and would retire. Humbled by the invitation to her retirement party, Abingdon was ready to commit. “Just say when and where, and I’m there!”

The Colonel’s hand went up. “Hold on. It will be at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.” Abingdon had played soccer but had never climbed or hiked. She began training.

The Colonel’s retirement would also be a benefit to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Only three of the thirteen guests were civilians. One was 70 years old and officiated the ceremony. They raised $60,000. For her part, Abingdon made a promise to those who donated through her link. She would shout out their names from the top of the mountain.

However, she was stricken with altitude sickness. She struggled to shout the names she had carried on her back all the way up. Despite fever, shakes, nausea, and dizziness, she kept her commitment, and every donor’s name soared from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Her next adventure on high terrain will be Machu Picchu, which is only 7,970’.

One of my favorite things about Abingdon is how she defines success. It comes, she says, when you’ve done everything within your power, put your heart and soul into it, even lost your breath striving for it. If you didn’t attain what you tried to do, you learned, and every lesson is a gift.

She’s not afraid of a challenge.

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