Chrysilios Chrysiliou on the Lesson a Collapsed Runway Taught Him
Westlake Village, CA – November 3, 2026 – In January 1994, the Northridge earthquake tore through Southern California. Its epicenter sat just miles from the flight school Chrysilios Chrysiliou had spent nearly a decade building with a partner.
By then, the school operated 21 aircraft and ran charter flights across the country. It had earned praise from the FAA. Then the ground shook, the hangar cracked, and the runways buckled.
Training flights stopped. Charters stopped. Within a short time, Chrys had to sell the business he and his partner had built from almost nothing.
What He Took From It
Chrys did not reopen a flight school. He did not try to rebuild what the earthquake had taken, piece by piece, in the same shape it had before. Instead, in 1995, he founded Transworld Innovation, an import and export business dealing in watches, baby products, and children’s toys.
The shift looked abrupt from the outside. From Chrys’s side, it followed a clear rule he had learned the hard way: a business tied to one location, one set of physical assets, or one kind of customer is a business one disaster away from ending.
A flight school needs runways. Runways can crack. Chrys decided his next venture would not depend on a single piece of ground holding still.
Carrying the Rule Forward
That rule did not stay in the 1990s. It shaped every move Chrys made after.
When he joined RDPH Properties in the early 2000s and moved into commercial real estate, he was not chasing a trend. Real estate, done carefully, builds value across many properties and many tenants, not one hangar and one runway. No single asset carries the whole business.
The same thinking shows up in how Chrys has built his food service ventures. A restaurant depends on one kitchen and one location. A string of coffee shops, Honeycup Coffeehouse and Creamery among them, spreads that same risk across many storefronts. Nurifo, his food-as-medicine company, spreads it further still, producing meals for people with specific dietary needs rather than selling a single menu to a single crowd.
Chrys does not describe this as a formula he sat down and wrote out. He describes it as something closer to an instinct he first earned in 1994, when he had no choice but to learn it.
Why He Still Thinks This Way
Ask Chrys what the earthquake actually taught him, and he does not talk about disaster planning. He talks about attachment.
“The mistake is falling in love with the shape of a business instead of the purpose behind it,” Chrys says. “The flight school taught people to fly. That purpose did not die when the runway cracked. Only the building did.”
He applies the same separation to real estate and food service today. A property is not the point. Serving tenants well is the point. A specific restaurant is not the point. Feeding people well, including people with real dietary needs, is the point.
“When you hold onto the purpose and stay loose about the form,” Chrys says, “a setback changes what you build next. It does not end what you are building toward.”
What This Means for How He Works Now
Chrys still applies the earthquake lesson in smaller ways, not just the large pivot from aviation to import and export to real estate. He is cautious about putting too much of any venture into one location, one supplier, or one type of customer.
With Nurifo, that caution shows up in who the business serves: individuals with specific dietary needs, hospitals, senior citizen organizations, and first responders, among others. No single customer category carries the whole business.
It is not a strategy Chrys would claim credit for inventing. He is quick to note that most people who have lost a business to something entirely outside their control come away with some version of the same instinct. His version happened to start with a hangar in Southern California, a partner he trusted, and a morning in January when the ground did not hold.
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About Chrysilios Chrysiliou
Chrysilios Chrysiliou is CEO of RDPH Properties, Inc., a commercial real estate company based in Westlake Village, California. He also owns Honeycup Coffeehouse and Creamery and founded Nurifo, a food-as-medicine company producing meals for individuals with specific dietary needs. Chrys is a longstanding member of St. Nicholas Church, a Greek Orthodox church in Los Angeles, and supports philanthropic work through the church both in the United States and abroad.
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