Klapmeier brothers
The Klapmeier brothers | |
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AOPA 's Air Safety Foundation (former) | |
Dale Klapmeier | |
Born | Rockford, Illinois, US July 2, 1961 |
Alma mater | University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point |
Years active | 2009–2019 (as head of Cirrus) |
Spouse(s) | Patricia Meyer |
Children | 2 |
Board member of | AKIA, AirSpace Minnesota (current) EAA's Young Eagles Program, Red Tail Squadron, NASA's Research & Technology Roundtable, Scott D. Anderson Leadership Foundation (former) |
The Klapmeier brothers, Alan Lee Klapmeier (born October 6, 1958)
The brothers started Cirrus in the basement of their parents' rural dairy barn near
After Cirrus, Alan became CEO of
Background
Early life
Alan and Dale Klapmeier grew up in DeKalb, Illinois and attended DeKalb High School.[23] Their parents bought a second home in the early 1970s on a small, rural farm near Baraboo, Wisconsin. Aviation was a part of the brothers' lives from a very early age. Alan told Airport Journals in 2006 that when he was a baby, the only way his mother could get him to stop crying at times was to bring him to an airport and park the car at the end of the runway so he could watch airplanes;[11] a tradition she continued with Dale soon after his birth as well.[24] The brothers frequently built model airplanes as young children and rode their bicycles to local airports.[11][25] When Dale reached the age of 15, he learned to fly in a Cessna 140 before learning to drive a car.[11][23] Alan joined the Civil Air Patrol at age 17 as a way of receiving more affordable flying lessons.[11] In his youth he often spoke about how he and his younger brother would one day design and build aircraft that would compete with Cessna.[23][26][27]
Family
Alan and Dale are two of three children born to Larry and Carol Klapmeier. They come from an entrepreneurial family. The eldest brother, Ernie Klapmeier, opened his own accessory store of
Larry and Carol were also entrepreneurs who founded a successful
Education
Alan graduated in 1980 from Wisconsin's Ripon College with degrees in physics and economics.[18][31] While a senior there in 1979, he began developing sketches of an airplane that would become the Cirrus VK-30,[12] and worked for more than three years in the Ripon admissions office while Dale finished college.[32] The two began making foam models of the VK-30 in 1980,[33] and in 1983, Dale graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point with degrees in business administration and economics.[34][35] He once said that his fall-back plan was to become a banker had their early career in aviation never succeeded.[35]
Career
Early work
In 1979, Dale discovered a wrecked 1960
Cirrus Aircraft
1980s: VK-30, barn, inspiration for parachute, municipal airport
Soon after Dale graduated from college the brothers formed an aircraft company in January 1984,
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Klapmeier_brothers_painting_fuselage_of_VK-30.png/220px-Klapmeier_brothers_painting_fuselage_of_VK-30.png)
The Klapmeier brothers would often fly their Champ from the farm up to their uncle's boat-building business in
In 1985, near the
In 1986, the Klapmeiers hired their first paid-employee, an experienced
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Old_Photo_of_The_Cirrus_VK-30.png/220px-Old_Photo_of_The_Cirrus_VK-30.png)
Their first display of the VK-30 was at the
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Old_Cirrus_Team_in_The_Late_80%27s.jpg/220px-Old_Cirrus_Team_in_The_Late_80%27s.jpg)
At the end of the 1980s, the Klapmeier brothers approached inventor
1990s: ST50, factory, SR20, company innovation and flight-testing
In the early 1990s, sales of the VK-30 were dwindling down; it became a market failure.
Cirrus started developing the ST-50 in the mid 1990s under contract to
Around this time, the brothers had the roles of Alan traveling around the country looking for investors and raising the capital Cirrus needed to certify the SR20 (known as "Mr. Outside"), and Dale staying back at the factory overseeing operations by keeping the design, testing and production moving (known as "Mr. Inside").[37]
The first SR20 prototype made its maiden flight on March 21, 1995. The following year, the company broke ground on a 67,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in Grand Forks, North Dakota. In 1997, Cirrus started assembly of its first production prototype and added another 80,000-square-feet onto their Duluth facility for manufacturing purposes.[11]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/SR20_aircraft_descends_under_parachute.jpg/220px-SR20_aircraft_descends_under_parachute.jpg)
Through the Klapmeiers' vision, the SR20 became the first of many production advancements within
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/1998_Type_Certificate_For_SR20.jpg/220px-1998_Type_Certificate_For_SR20.jpg)
On March 23, 1999, tragedy struck Cirrus when Scott Anderson was killed in a crash near the Duluth International Airport as he put the first production SR20 through torture-test maneuvers before it went on sale.[37] The plane Anderson was flying had an aileron jam and was not yet equipped with the standard ballistic parachute that would come certified on every aircraft.[54] Dale spoke at his posthumous induction into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame on April 24, 2010, saying, "Scott was an exemplary pilot and person ... To date, 17 CAPS deployments have saved 35 lives due to Scott's pioneering work."[53] Despite the tragedy, and the Klapmeier brothers losing a close friend and their most talented test pilot, Cirrus fixed the problem that killed Anderson and continued on to deliver the first SR20 in July 1999—receiving 400 orders by the first year alone.[3][37]
2000s: SR22, success and company growth, Vision Jet, recession
In the early 2000s, sales of the SR20 were steadily rising. This led to the Cirrus SR22, a faster, higher and more powerful version of the SR20.[55] Production on the new aircraft started in 2001. In August of that year, Cirrus sold 58% of the company for $100 million to Crescent Capital, the US arm of the First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain (now called Arcapita), making the Klapmeier brothers both millionaires and minority stakeholders in their own company.[13][23][27]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Cirrus_SR22%2C_Private_JP6173876.jpg/220px-Cirrus_SR22%2C_Private_JP6173876.jpg)
By the middle of 2003, the SR22 had become the highest-selling general aviation aircraft in the world, beating out even that of
In 2006, Cirrus accomplished all-time record deliveries, celebrating their 3,000th SR-series aircraft off the production line only seven years after deliveries commenced,
In September 2008, the global sales slump in piston-engined aircraft impacted the company and they laid off 100 workers, 8% of their workforce. This included 79 people at the main plant in Duluth, Minnesota, and 29 employees at the composite construction plant in Grand Forks, North Dakota. After this round of layoffs, Cirrus had 1,230 employees remaining. Alan, the then-CEO, announced in October 2008 that due to the economic recession and resulting lack of demand for Cirrus aircraft, the company was moving to a three-day work week. He reported that sales were down 10% over the same period in the previous year. Compared to the industry average in that same period, sales were down 16%.[65]
Cirrus eliminated 208 employee positions in the fall of 2008 and cut aircraft production from 14 to 12 aircraft per week in response to the economic situation. In November of that year, the company announced that it would furlough about 500 production employees to allow for reductions in excess stock of aircraft produced.[66][67]
On December 18, 2008, it was made public that chief operating officer Brent Wouters would replace Alan as CEO effective February 1, 2009. Alan continued as chairman of the board with Dale as vice-chairman.[68]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Cirrus_Vision_SF50_exterior_facing_left.jpg/220px-Cirrus_Vision_SF50_exterior_facing_left.jpg)
On June 26, 2009, Alan announced that he had assembled a team to acquire the aircraft manufacturer's Vision SF50 single-engine jet program from majority owner Arcapita Bank and produce it under a new company.[69] Dale came out in support of his efforts and said that Alan was the only person Cirrus would consider letting take over the jet project.[70] Over a month later the attempt failed and Wouters announced that Alan's contract as chairman would not be renewed when it expired at the end of August (a decision Wouters said Alan had known about for "several months" prior).[71][72] Alan left Cirrus soon after this while Dale stayed with the company.[73]
2010s: End of business partnership, separate career paths
Alan and Kestrel
At the 2010 EAA airshow, Alan introduced his new venture, the Kestrel Aircraft Company, and would serve as its CEO. Kestrel was to produce the
In May 2014, it was reported that Kestrel had fallen months behind on loan payments to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) due to financing delays. Alan spoke on the matter saying, "We're obviously still very excited about the program. We've made a lot of progress on the design, what we expect to build, what we expect to do with the FAA, but there are other frustrations. Certainly financing the project has been slower than we had hoped and expected." It was also reported that the delay in financing had impacted hiring, causing the company to reduce its staff in Superior.[77]
On 15 April 2015, Kestrel merged with
Dale and Cirrus
In September 2009, Dale became interim chairman of Cirrus.[84]
On 19 September 2011, Cirrus named him the new CEO, and announced that Brent Wouters "is no longer with the company".
In 2013 and 2014, Cirrus had its strongest years in sales and deliveries since before the 2008 recession, naming its SR22/22T model the best-selling general aviation airplane for the 12th year in a row and making Cirrus the world's largest producer of piston-powered aircraft with a nearly 40% market share.[56][87][88] The company flew three new Vision SF50 conforming prototypes and employed over 800 people in 2014, having hired more than 300 of them in the past three years.[87] In May 2015, Dale and chief customer officer Todd Simmons announced that Cirrus will be expanding to an additional facility in Knoxville, Tennessee, called the "Vision Center", where all customer activities for the company will take place.[89]
On 28 October 2016, Cirrus received type certification for the SF50, making it the first single-engine civilian jet to become certified with the FAA.[90] Deliveries began in December 2016.[91] In June 2018, Dale accepted the Collier Trophy on behalf of Cirrus and the Vision Jet team. The trophy is awarded for "the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America" during the preceding year.[16][17]
On 19 December 2018, it was made public that Dale will step down as CEO sometime in the first-half of 2019 and transition into a senior advisory role for the company.
Management style distinctions
During the three decades they worked together professionally, Alan was known as the more talkative, risk-taking "dreamer" out of the two, whereas Dale was known as the more taciturn, hands-on "practical one". Described by the EAA Aviation Museum as Alan being "the thinker" and Dale "the tinkerer",[33] many say this is partly what made the duo so successful—Alan would come up with creative ideas and Dale would figure out how to get them done.[11][37][40]
Dale told the Duluth News Tribune in 2009 that, "The difference between the two of us is that Alan is a dreamer, and he's extremely aggressive in what he wants. I'm far more conservative than he is, and I've always loved the hands-on stuff";[73] and Alan told Airport Journals in 2006 that, "Dale is more practical [than me]—unbelievably practical, in fact. Dale figures out how to make [the design] work."[11]
Throughout most of the brothers' early career, Alan administered as president at Cirrus with Dale as vice president. In a 1999
Boards and other affiliations
The Klapmeier brothers have both served on numerous aviation boards and programs. Alan served on the board of
In 2003, Alan and Dale donated a fully operational SR20 to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, as a learning tool for school students.[99] Ten years later, Dale donated an SR22 to Minneapolis-based STEM learning center AirSpace Minnesota.[100]
For much of the 2000s, Alan was part-owner of Bluewater Yachts, a central-Minnesota boat manufacturing company that the brothers' uncle founded in the 1970s, with the slogan "Different By Design".[29]
Dale participates in a snowmobiling fundraising event called the "Black Woods Blizzard Tour", an annual
Personal lives
There have been reports of a bitter personal falling-out between the brothers that occurred around the time of Alan's departure from Cirrus in 2009.[103] Alan told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2012 that he had not spoken to Dale in several years but would not discuss the reasons why on record.[18]
General Aviation News reported in 2011 that Alan had considered running for Congress,[104] although he ultimately decided against it.
In March 2014, Alan brought Cirrus to court over a violated non-disparagement clause involving a 2011 interview with former Cirrus CEO Brent Wouters, in which Wouters allegedly criticized Alan's ability to lead a large company during times of "economic downturn". A Minnesota jury awarded Alan $10 million in lost profits and out-of-pocket expenses. Cirrus, which was under the leadership of Dale at the time, appealed the verdict and the state Court of Appeals overturned the ruling in a 2-1 decision, stating that the calculation of damages was "too speculative" and failed to demonstrate the amount to a "reasonable degree of certainty". The Minnesota Supreme Court denied to hear Alan's appeal and the lawsuit ended in December 2015.[105]
Alan was married to Sara Dougherty from 2002 until their divorce in 2016.[106] Together with his first wife, Patti Graves, whom he was married to from 1987 to 1999, he has two daughters: Kathryn (born 1989) and Sarah (born 1993).[1]
Dale has been married to Patricia Meyer since 1984 and together they have two sons: Ryan (born 1988) and Blake (born 1992).[1]
Dale said in a 2008 interview that one of his main incentives behind co-designing the Cirrus SR20 was that it had to be an airplane that Patricia "would want to fly in more than drive", which helped change the direction of the company in the 1990s.[24]
Reputation and recognition
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Cirrus.sr22.n147vc.arp.jpg/220px-Cirrus.sr22.n147vc.arp.jpg)
Through Cirrus, the Klapmeier brothers are credited with revolutionizing the personal aircraft industry for the modern era.[7][9][41][60]
They have been referenced several times in national articles and columns such as The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine by journalist, author and former speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, James Fallows,[37][40][107] who said in a 2010 article that the brothers "absolutely transformed what had been a stagnant, declining industry."[103] They were also a central theme in Fallows' 2001 book, Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel.[108]
Aviation communities have often compared the Klapmeier brothers to the Wright brothers, giving them the nickname, "modern day Wright brothers".[107][108] Some say this gave more public sentiment to Cirrus' 2003 release of the "Centennial Edition", an SR22 that celebrated 100 years of flight with a mural of the Wright Flyer coating the tail of the plane.[8] The story of Cirrus has also garnered comparisons to Apple Inc., while Alan and Dale have been called "aviation’s equivalent of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak".[109]
The first time the Klapmeiers gained national exposure was in 1998 when radio commentator Paul Harvey spoke positively about Cirrus and the SR20 on his syndicated program.[96] In the 2004 vice-presidential debate, former Vice President Dick Cheney indirectly mentioned the Klapmeier brothers, calling them and Cirrus "a great success story".[110] The Klapmeiers have also been praised for their efforts by former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. After a visit to the Duluth Cirrus factory in 2003, Pawlenty thanked Alan and Dale for "their foresight in creating a new aircraft, bringing it to the market, and the associated risks they took to make it happen."[111] The late 18-term Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar was a strong supporter of the Klapmeiers as well, and was one of the main proponents behind bringing Cirrus to Duluth, Minnesota in 1994—along with Cirrus vice president of business administration Bill King and former Duluth Mayor Gary Doty.[112][113]
The Klapmeier brothers received the Living Legends of Aviation award in 2007 at a ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. Among the attendees that year were aerospace pioneers and celebrities such as Bob Hoover, Buzz Aldrin, Clay Lacy, Michael Dorn, Patty Wagstaff, Cliff Robertson, Chuck Yeager, and many more.[114]
British business magnate
Besides Lance Neibauer of
Since 2022, the brothers are featured in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum along with a 2003 Cirrus SR22 (N266CD), the first piston aircraft with a full glass cockpit.[117]
Awards and accolades
External videos | |
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- Dr. August Raspet Memorial Award - 1992[118]
- MnDOT's NASAO Award - 2004 (Alan Klapmeier & Cirrus)[119]
- Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year for Manufacturing - 2004[58]
- Admiral Luis de Florez Flight Safety Award - 2005 (Alan Klapmeier)[120]
- CAFE Foundation's PADA Trophy - 2006 (Alan Klapmeier)[121]
- Living Legends of Aviation Award—Entrepreneurs of the Year - 2006[114]
- Aero Club of New England's Dr. Godfrey L. Cabot Award - 2007[122]
- EAA's Freedom of Flight Award - 2007[123]
- Joel Labovitz Entrepreneurial Achievement Award - 2008[124]
- Oshkosh, Wisconsin's Key to the City Award - 2008[125]
- Deke Slayton Airfest's Distinguished Wisconsin Aviators Award - 2009[citation needed]
- Wiley Post Spirit Award - 2011 (Dale Klapmeier)[126]
- Fliegermagazin's Industry Leader of the Year - 2012 (Dale Klapmeier)[127]
- Ranked No. 17 on Flying Magazine's list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation - 2013[7]
- National Aviation Hall of Fame Inductees - 2014[9][12][43]
- Minnesota Business Hall of Fame Inductee - 2015 (Dale Klapmeier)[93][128]
- Atlanta Aero Club’s Phoenix Award - 2015 (Alan Klapmeier)[129]
- Angel Flight West's Inspiration Endeavor Award - 2018 (Dale Klapmeier & Cirrus)[102]
- Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame Inductee - 2022 (Dale Klapmeier)[49][130]
See also
- B&F Fk14 Polaris (Cirrus SR Sport)
- Paul Poberezny - who helped popularize aircraft homebuilding, founder of the EAA
- Boris Popov- who invented a ballistic parachute for use in ultralights, founder of BRS
- Burt Rutan - who pioneered the use of composites in homebuilts and spacecraft
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External links
- Dale and Alan Klapmeier profile in the National Aviation Hall of Fame
- Story profile on the Klapmeier brothers in Flying Adventures and PrivateAir
- Video of Dale Klapmeier speaking at Redbird Migration in 2016
Articles
- Heart of glass - where Alan Klapmeier talks about the importance of glass cockpits (The Economist, 2004)
- Experts Differ on Value Of Parachutes for Aircraft - debate over Cirrus' parachutes (The Washington Post, 2006)
- Inside the National Air and Space Museum - written by Alan Klapmeier for The Atlantic (2011)
- From Minnesota to the moon - written by Dale Klapmeier for the Star Tribune (2013)