In Our Memories
ORGAIN, ALBERT
Posted: Monday, June 30, 2014 8:01 am
ORGAIN, Albert M. IV, of Manakin-Sabot, Va., died Friday morning, June 27, 2014. He is survived by his wife, Jacquelyn Norman Orgain; his son, Albert Marcellus Orgain V and his wife, Elizabeth Saxman Orgain; his son, Frazer Macon Orgain and his wife, Corbin Adamson Orgain; his grandsons, Peter Bland Orgain, John Stuart Orgain, Gatewood Harrison Orgain; and his granddaughter, Ann Darnley Orgain. A member of the Sands, Anderson, Marks and Miller law firm for 43 years, he served as the leader of Coverage and Casualty Litigation Group for over twenty of those years. As a specialist in aviation litigation, he earned many honors over the course of his career to include selection to the "Best Lawyers in America" list for the last six years and "Virginia Super Lawyers" for the last seven years. He served as the Chairman of the Virginia Aviation Historical Society and was inducted into the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame in 2010 for his enthusiastic and persistent work in promoting aviation in Virginia. In 2011, Mr. Orgain was named a Virginia Lawyers Weekly Leader in the Law in recognition of his aviation law practice and support of aviation history in the Commonwealth. In 2013, he was named a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation. Born in Columbia, S.C., but raised in Richmond, Mr. Orgain left home to spend his high school years at Randolph Macon Academy in Front Royal, Va., where he graduated in 1961 and would later serve on the Board of Trustees. After graduating from Virginia Military Institute in 1965, Mr. Orgain served three years in the United States Army as an armor officer, helicopter gunship pilot and instrument flight instructor. During the Vietnam War, he was twice awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart and received six Air Medals. Upon graduating from Washington and Lee Law School in 1971, Mr. Orgain clerked for the Honorable Judge John A. McKenzie in Norfolk, Va. for two years before being hired as an associate at Sands, Anderson.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, July 2, at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 6000 Grove Avenue.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Albert M. Orgain IV Scholarship Fund at the Virginia Military Institute or to a charity of one's own choosing.
Al is in the front row in the blue shirt.
Plane crash victim was venerated pilot, lawyer from Goochland
BY BILL McKELWAY Richmond Times-Dispatch | Posted: Friday, June 27, 2014 10:30 pm
A longtime Richmond-area attorney and aviation expert was the victim of a plane crash in North Carolina on Friday, his law firm announced Friday evening.
A spokesman for the Sands Anderson law firm said the plane involved is registered to firm member Albert M. Orgain IV, who was scheduled to fly to North Carolina on business Friday morning and was piloting the plane alone.
The Sands Anderson firm announced on its website “the sudden passage ... of an integral part of our firm for 43 years.”
“Mr. Orgain was one of Virginia’s foremost aviation attorneys and was considered an expert in the aviation and insurance industry. His practice included representing clients in commercial transportation, aviation and utility law and product liability,” the announcement said.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the single-engine plane crashed into a field near Littleton, N.C., after its pilot reported engine trouble. The Cessna 182 was headed to Halifax- Northampton Regional Airport about 10 a.m.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday that it has initiated an investigation into the crash that left the plane turned upside-down in a farm field.
Orgain, a celebrated pilot and former chairman of the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society and a member of its Hall of Fame, made his home in Goochland County. The plane had departed Friday from Sabot Airport in Goochland.
Orgain, who graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1965 and Washington and Lee University Law School, was awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions during his service in Vietnam.
He was a specialist in aviation litigation, often flying his own plane to meet with clients and to the sites of aviation accidents.
In 1982, he was commissioned a captain in the Virginia Army National Guard.
In an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2007, the former helicopter gunship pilot remarked on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
file:///C:/Users/wdsl/AppData/Local/Temp/3BVM2IIN.htm 6/28/2014
Plane crash victim was venerated pilot, lawyer from Goochland - Richmond Times-Dispa... Page 2 of 2
“You put your hand on that wall and touch the place where those names are, and you’re taken back to when you were 24 and you thought yourself invincible. It’s proof that you and they were not,” he said.
He said then that he wasn’t sure he would revisit the wall.
“We need to remember, but we don’t need to remember every day.” Funeral arrangements were incomplete Friday night.
ORGAIN, ALBERT - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Obituaries & In Memoriam Page 1 of 1
Posted obituary
Albert M. Orgain IV, decorated Vietnam
veteran, aviation
lawyer, dies at 71
Was decorated Vietnam combat pilot,
named a ‘Virginia Super
Lawyer’
BY ELLEN ROBERTSON Richmond
Times-Dispatch posted 1 month
ago July 1st, 2014
Albert Marcellus Orgain IV was 8 years
old when he decided
to become a pilot.
After graduating from Virginia Military
Institute in 1965,
he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army and sent
to South Vietnam.
Between February and May 1967, he flew
99 combat missions
with the 9th Infantry Division. The division piloted UH-1C
Huey helicopter
gunships near the Mekong River Delta.
Mr. Orgain earned two Distinguished
Flying Crosses, two
Purple Hearts and six Air Medals and went on to become a
lawyer who specialized
in aviation litigation.
He will be honored at a memorial service at 1 p.m.
today at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 6000 Grove Ave.
The Manakin resident and Columbia, S.C.,
native was a
longtime shareholder with the Richmond law firm of Sands,
Anderson, Marks &
Miller. He died Friday morning at age 71 as the result of
injuries suffered in
an airplane crash.
Family members said he was flying his
Cessna 182 on a
business trip to Rocky Mount, N.C., when he reported an engine
problem and
crash-landed about five miles west of the Halifax County
Airport.
He earned his first Distinguished Flying
Cross for his
efforts in rescuing an infantry unit pinned down by Viet Cong
fire in a rice
paddy near Tan An on March 25, 1967.
When the unit marked its position by
turning on a
flashlight, the Viet Cong opened fire on the helicopter Mr.
Orgain was
piloting, he recalled in a 1992 Richmond Times-Dispatch
interview. By the light
of flares, he attacked VC positions until he spent his rockets
and machine gun
ammunition, and the enemy gave up.
His second DFC came during a mission
over Nui Dat. While
flying support for ground units, his gunship hit a tree-rigged
booby trap,
detonating a cannon that “went off like a bomb,” he said in
the interview.
Shrapnel blasted through the gunship,
hitting a rocket as it
was being fired, tearing a hole in the bottom of the
helicopter and ripping off
half a rotor blade.
On May 18, 1967, he took a bullet in his
left leg. The wound
developed an infection that refused to heal, and the Army sent
him to the
states to recuperate. He spent the rest of his active service
teaching
instrument flying and was discharged as a captain in 1968.
In 1982, he was commissioned a captain
in the Virginia Army National
Guard and served 14 months with the 28th Aviation Battalion.
Mr. Orgain, who grew up in Richmond,
graduated from
Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1971. After a
year in Norfolk as
a law clerk, he returned to Richmond and joined Sands,
Anderson, Marks &
Miller, where he became a partner in 1977.
He led the firm’s Coverage and Casualty
Litigation Group for
more than 20 years.
Always well-prepared, “He filled the
(court)room. He
controlled the court and was very courageous,” Sands
shareholder Douglas P.
Rucker Jr. remembered.
Douglas A. Weingardner, another Sands
shareholder, said Mr.
Orgain taught him to “get out of the office” and be thorough
in his work. He
recalled driving through the Nevada desert for three hours and
hiking for two
more with him “and then we really found out what happened” at
the site of a
plane crash.
A much-honored specialist in aviation
litigation who created
his own specialty at his firm, he was selected as one of the
“Best Lawyers in
America” for the last six years and “Virginia Super Lawyers”
for the last
seven.
He was a former chairman of the Virginia
Aviation Historical
Society, which inducted him into the Virginia Aviation Hall of
Fame in 2010 for
his enthusiastic and persistent work in promoting aviation in
the state.
A man who ran on full throttle or at
full stop, “he had a
very large personality that could fill a room and make
everyone in the room
feel comfortable in his presence,” said a son, Albert
Marcellus “Marc” Orgain V
of Newport, R.I.
Mr. Orgain’s daughter-in-law, Corbin
Orgain, recalled that
he would say, “C’mon, babies!” and her young children would
run to him, and he
would sweep them into his arms and swing them around.
His children remembered him chronicling
their lives in
nonstop photos, scooting around his neighborhood in his
Christmas
light-emblazoned go-kart, carrying on the family tradition of
saying “Love one
another” as he parted company, firing blanks from a 15-inch
cannon when the VMI
team or his children’s sports teams scored a point, and
dancing rings around
the 20-something set with his wife.
Survivors, besides his son, include his
wife, Jacquelyn
Norman Orgain; another son, Frazer Macon Orgain of Richmond;
and four
grandchildren.
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