Duncan Aviation is known for team members with longevity. We have 715 lifetime team members in our Silver Wings Club, which recognizes current and retired team members who have been with us for 25 years or longer.
The team members at each of our main MRO locations and Satellites with the longest tenure have a combined 176 years of service, witnessing remarkable growth while helping shape the company along the way. Each says the same things kept them here: meaningful work, opportunities to grow, and people who became like family.
Matt Nelson never expected the warehouse job he took in 1987 would become a nearly four-decade career.
After a serious accident ended his plans to join the US Army, Matt was looking for his next opportunity. A family friend suggested he apply for a warehouse position at Duncan Aviation. What he thought would be a temporary job became the foundation of a career that ultimately led him to oversee Duncan Aviation’s nationwide Satellite Operations.
Matt quickly moved to Shipping & Receiving before joining the Nav/Com bench while attending Southeast Community College. After earning his associate degree in electronics, he transitioned into avionics, building both his technical skills and his passion for aviation maintenance.
Throughout his career, Matt credits several Duncan Aviation leaders for encouraging his growth. Dick Emmons convinced him to stay when he moved to Texas, while Don Fiedler recognized his leadership potential, hiring him for the Dallas Satellite and later entrusting him with leadership opportunities at the Satellite Shops in Van Nuys, California, and Denver, Colorado. Duncan Aviation’s tuition reimbursement program also helped Matt earn his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering while working in Dallas.
In 2007, Matt became Manager of Satellite Operations. Under his leadership, Duncan Aviation’s Satellite network expanded from 12 to 28 locations.
Looking back, Matt says the decision to stay was never complicated.
“The Duncan family has treated me so well over the years, I haven’t considered going anywhere else,” he says. “I am able to provide for my family while working a challenging career with people I really enjoy, so why look anywhere else?”
Nearly 36 years ago, Todd Reckling knew exactly where he wanted to work. The challenge was convincing Duncan Aviation to hire him.
After exploring several career paths and serving three years in the US Air Force, Todd discovered a passion for electronics while stationed in Minot, North Dakota. When he returned to Nebraska, he worked construction, but his sights were set on Duncan Aviation.
“I called and bugged John Slieter until he finally gave me an interview,” Todd says with a laugh.
Todd joined Duncan Aviation in 1989 as a Tech I in Avionics Install, spending the next 13 years on second shift. The schedule worked well for his growing family, allowing balanced childcare for his two sons while he built his career.
He watched avionics technology evolve through the years and kept on top of the changes.
As his experience grew, so did his responsibilities. Todd advanced from Technician to Crew Leader, then Team Leader, and today serves as an RTS Inspector II.
In 2018, another opportunity led him West when we expanded our Provo, Utah, facility. After visiting the area with his significant other and taking in the mountain views, the decision to relocate came easily.
“We looked around, surrounded by mountains, and that sold us,” Todd says.
Looking back, Todd says it’s the people and the company’s culture that have made Duncan Aviation a place worth staying.
“The people are what kept me here,” he says. “Management has always treated me well.”
Earlier this year, Todd transitioned to part-time work, giving him more time to enjoy his two favorite pastimes—fishing and taking his car to the racetrack.
When Paul Oneth joined Duncan Aviation in 1975, the Lincoln Parts Department had just six people. More than five decades later, Material Services has grown to approximately 180 team members. As Enterprise Manager of Material Services, Paul has helped guide that transformation.
His path to Duncan Aviation wasn’t exactly straightforward. Paul was working in Boeing’s Fabrication Shop in Wichita, Kansas, after considering a career in aeronautical engineering. At the time, however, the aviation industry was experiencing a downturn, prompting him to explore other opportunities.
Aviation had always been part of Paul’s life. His mother worked for Beechcraft, his father retired from Boeing, and several other family members built careers in the industry. He even earned his pilot’s license at age 16 while working on a ranch along the Kansas-Oklahoma border.
When he learned Duncan Aviation was hiring, Paul interviewed with Jack Ager and accepted a position.
“Right away, I liked the company,” Paul says. “It felt like a great place to work, and I could see opportunity. I loved that it was family-owned.”
Over the next 51 years, Paul witnessed—and helped lead—remarkable change within Material Services. Material Services evolved from handwritten inventory records to sophisticated inventory systems supporting Duncan Aviation’s nationwide operations.
“With inventory spread throughout our main facilities and Satellites, we needed much greater accuracy and visibility,” Paul says. “The technology has helped us manage that growth.”
Among the accomplishments he is most proud of are helping integrate Kal-Aero into Duncan Aviation’s processes and procedures and building the Material Services operation in Provo from the ground up.
Paul says change has been constant.
“I’ve always looked for ways to improve myself, the team, and the operation,” he says.
Along the way, he also built lasting relationships throughout the industry.
“It’s a small industry,” he says. “People may move from company to company, but aviation gets in your blood.”
After more than five decades, Paul says the reasons he’s remained at Duncan Aviation are simple: a family-owned culture, opportunities to grow, meaningful friendships, and the chance to make a lasting impact.
“It’s like home and family,” he says. “I’ve probably spent more time here than at my own house.”
Having watched Duncan Aviation grow from a single hangar into a nationwide organization, Paul has enjoyed a front-row seat to the company’s evolution.
“It’s been amazing to watch the company evolve over the last 50 years,” he says. “I’ve watched the business grow, and I’ve watched the Duncan family grow up right alongside it.”
For Airframe Master Tech Dale Vanderlaare, a career in aviation wasn’t a choice—it was a lifelong passion.
Dale’s fascination with aviation began in childhood, building model airplanes and listening to stories of his father and uncles serving in the US Air Force. That passion eventually led him to a unique high school aviation program, offered through the local community college and Kal-Aero, where students gained hands-on maintenance experience long before internships became common.
The experience prepared him well.
After graduating from high school, Dale completed a job application for Kal-Aero in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on a Thursday. He signed his hiring paperwork on Friday. By Saturday, he was opening the Line Department and working 14-hour shifts on his own. “So much for orientation!” he jokes.
When Duncan Aviation acquired Kal-Aero years later, Dale wasn’t sure what the future would hold. A conversation with then Chairman Robert Duncan quickly put his mind at ease.
“He told me, ‘No, no—you get to keep your seniority,’” Dale recalls. “That showed me we weren’t just being acquired for numbers.”
Over the course of five decades, Dale built a career working on an impressive variety of aircraft. Among his favorite experiences were opportunities to restore and maintain historic Warbirds through Kal-Aero and the Air Zoo Museum. His work included aircraft such as the AT-6 Texan, FM-2 Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, F7F Tigercat, F4U Corsair, P-51 Mustang, AD-4 Skyraider, P-47 Thunderbolt, and the Ford Tri-Motor—aircraft many technicians only have the chance to admire from a distance.
While other companies occasionally came calling with new opportunities, accepting those offers would have meant leaving the place he had grown to call home.
Looking back, he notes that only one of the six companies that tried to recruit him is still in business today—a reminder that stability and culture matter just as much as opportunity.
For Dale, Duncan Aviation has provided all of those. His lifelong passion for aviation became a rewarding career built on craftsmanship, trust, and the satisfaction of doing work he has loved from the very beginning.
Their careers span nearly two centuries of combined experience, but their reasons for staying sound remarkably similar. Meaningful work. Opportunities to grow. Leaders who invested in them. And teammates who became lifelong friends.
As Duncan Aviation continues to grow, these four careers demonstrate that the company’s greatest strength has always been its people.