On Monday, November 7, 2016 at 10:57:31 AM UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
I remember John from my years at the new Black Forest. He was dedicated
to youth in soaring.

On 11/6/2016 8:56 PM, Papa3 wrote:
Sean,

If nothing else, you are entertaining.

Busy with work this evening, but in a nutshell... The Collegiate Soaring Association has been around for 30 years. It is an affiliate of the SSA.. It was founded by Dr. John Campbell in 1984 who was a post-doc at Princeton when I was an undergraduate. The two of us, along with several others, spent years working very hard to revive college-based soaring activity. John was incredibly passionate about the project, and spent countless hours promoting, cajoling, and driving this. We obtained 501 C3 status, we received a few donations, we even hosted competitions. I personally drove around to Penn State, Ohio State, RIT, and several others with John to conduct workshops, help with recruiting drives, etc. I drove the 1-36 which was donated around to several sites as a loaner to help drive activity.

Eventually, we were able to pull together a few Collegiate Championships, but in reality they were just a couple of juniors participating in existing SSA Regionals (I believe Sean Franke won one, though calling it an "MSU Championship" was really a stretch). John managed to pull a "local" competition together in Colorado due in large part to the presence of the Air Force Academy. When John tragically died way too young from brain cancer, the CSA really started to fade away.

In the end, it turned out that College Soaring clubs are very hard to maintain. As an example, the Princeton club was at one point one of the largest campus organizations, with over 70 members. It was started by Steve Sliwa, himself a Harris Hill Junior. We had tremendous advantages, being a university with an active Flight Research program and our own airport. That meant qualified CFIs, towpilots, and even mechanics. But, over the years, the university got out of the Flight Research business, they sold the airport, and the nearest glider operation was an hour away. After a few years, the membership was down to a handful of students, and those students rotate out every 4 years. Also, many recent graduates are challenged by finances, time, and frankly have other passions. So, imagine the difficulty at other colleges and universities that don't already have an active group of students naturally inclined toward aviation.

Soaring is a very quirky sport. If a person with as much energy and drive as John can't achieve critical mass in Collegiate Soaring over 10 years, it's not something that a couple of posts on RAS will change.

Erik Mann (P3)

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Dan, 5J

John was a dynamo. The last time I saw him was at an SSA Banquet. He was ravaged by cancer at the time and very frail. As soon as he saw me he asked if I was going to get a glider club started at Iowa State. I could see the twinkle in his eye. The energy was still there. Amazing.

He was a great guy and an example for the rest of us to aspire to