Mission Accomplished
Dan Hargrove looks back on a career in aviation
When Dan Hargrove received word of the terrorist attacks carried out on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, his reaction was much the same as the rest of the country: Shock, disbelief, horror, helplessness. But unlike most citizens who were glued to their television screens, Dan was on a mission.
Dan, who is now the director of aviation at Rocky Mountain College, was a squadron commander at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. On most days he was the pilot in the cockpit of Air Force Two, responsible for transporting members of the president’s cabinet and family. On Sept. 11, he was waiting at an airport in Sarasota, Florida. while President George W. Bush read to a group of children at a nearby elementary school.
Dan happened to be flying a backup aircraft for Air Force One. It is a strict rule that wherever Air Force One goes, an identical aircraft follows. If something happens and Air Force One is grounded, even for a short time, the backup plane is ready and available to keep the president and his entourage on schedule.
As soon as President Bush arrived at the airport, the two Boeing 757s took to the air. All other flights, commercial and otherwise were grounded.
“We were the only two planes allowed to be airborne in the country,” Dan says.
Their flight plan was top secret. Dan followed as Air Force One flew under the radar, zig-zagging across the country, stopping only at remote Air Force bases. Dan couldn’t help but put himself in the president’s shoes. What was he thinking? Dan wondered.
“My sense was that his staff said we need to stay safe, and the president was saying, I need to address the country from the oval office,” Dan says. “By the end of the day, he’d won. And we were routed to Washington, D.C., where the president addressed the country.”
No one could have predicted the events of Sept. 11, but the shock of the attack could be felt around the world.
“I was just like everyone,” Dan says. “You’re just a guy at work as the whole world changed.”
Dan’s days at work were never ordinary.
He remembers flying Vice President Al Gore on campaign stops around the country, hitting a new state every day, landing on the runway at Jackson Hole to drop Vice President Dick Cheney and his hunting dogs off for a long weekend, and flying heads of state and members of the president’s cabinet and family to destinations worldwide. In his time flying Air Force Two, Dan flew around the world three times and visited 90 different countries.
“We were a projection of the United States everywhere we went,” Dan says. “It was like a little part of America was showing up in each of these places.”
While his duties were certainly exciting, he was also the squadron commander, a position that required extraordinary leadership.
“I was responsible for the care and feeding of 120 people,” Dan says. “It was the very peak of my service, and I was in service to these people. The bottom line is, you serve the mission, so how can I serve you?”
It was his many years of military service that built his leadership philosophy.
Dan’s father was an Air Force pilot, and from the time he was a boy, he wanted to fly. He was drawn to the travel and adventure the Air Force offered, so when he graduated from high school, he applied and was accepted into the Air Force Academy. When he graduated, Dan moved on to flight school. There, as a newly minted Air Force pilot, he was expected to teach incoming recruits.
“The flying isn’t very hard,” Dan says. “Teaching is a way for a new pilot to get experience and go on to bigger things.”
Dan took off in his new role as an instructor and loved teaching new pilots to fly high-performance fighters, including F-16s, made famous by the movie “Top Gun.”
“There’s an assumption that everyone in the Air Force wants to be Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun.’ I wasn’t one of them. I wanted to accomplish an everyday mission, and I wanted to travel and see the world,” Dan says.
When an opportunity to join the U.S. military’s cargo fleet arose, Dan jumped at the chance and started the second phase of his career. His assignment was hauling military cargo with a giant C-141 Starlifter. The aircraft is retired now, but it was the workhorse of the military’s cargo fleet.
In 1991, Dan was called to serve in the Gulf War. He flew the massive C-141 into combat zones and other destinations across the Middle East. His cargo ranged from military vehicles to personnel and medical equipment to food — anything the troops on the ground needed. Dan was 29 and it was the most satisfying and intense nine months of his life.
“We were flying our brains out,” Dan says. “I flew as hard as you could possibly fly.”
The days were long and exhausting. He was in his prime as a pilot and his peers were too. Dan kept a journal, believing that every generation had their time, and this was his.
“We were the tip of the spear,” Dan says. “This feeling that this is our time, this is what I’ve trained to be, a military pilot.”
Following the Gulf War, Dan was eager for a new challenge and came “home” to Montana. The Madison River Valley was where his grandfather owned a ranch, where his father grew up, and where Dan spent his childhood summers. He earned a graduate degree in mechanical engineering from Montana State University in Bozeman.
“That 18 months brought me back to my Montana roots,” Dan says.
One opportunity led to the next and Dan joined the faculty at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Teaching was like coming home, and it was a defining time in his life.
“I’m a teacher. Yes, I’m a military pilot, but I spent most of my career teaching,” he says.
In Dan’s experience, the basic skills required to fly any aircraft are the same no matter what aircraft you’re flying. What makes a good pilot, he says, are the skills not so easily taught: critical thinking, professionalism, problem solving, collaboration and an ability to adapt to new technology.
Were it not for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fly Air Force Two, he might have never left the Air Force Academy, but after seven years at Andrews Air Force Base, he was 20 years in, at the top of his game, and ready for something new. He was far from retirement, but ready to say goodbye to the military.
“I felt God’s leading to make a change,” Dan says.
He had his wife and their four children to consider, and he wanted to be home more. And the idea of settling in Montana was an itch he wanted to scratch.
He retired from the Air Force in 2003. Most of his buddies who were retiring at that time were looking for a job with the airlines, but Dan wasn’t interested in that. He headed to Montana, unsure of his future, and before long, he heard about a job as the director of aviation at Rocky Mountain College. It was — and still is — his dream job.
“It’s everything I love,” Dan says. “I get to teach, and I get to mentor students, and I’m surrounded by aircraft.”
Now, he’s leading the department with the same philosophy he led the squadron at Andrews Air Force Base. With Rocky’s 10 aircraft, Dan oversees 21 flight instructors and three mechanics as well as support staff.
He loves it when former students drop by and say they landed their dream job flying for the airlines or are now flying for the military. They’re young people from across Montana and throughout the region who had the same dream of flying that Dan had as a boy.
He believes that the liberal arts education provided by Rocky gives new pilots from their program an advantage over other flight schools. A broad-based education provides students with the life experience that makes a good pilot.
“It’s the liberal arts that is what Rocky Mountain College is about, and yes, of course, we’re going to teach you to fly an airplane,” Dan says. “College is not just to learn a skill so you can get a job. There’s so much more to it.”
When it comes to a career in aviation, Dan has experienced more than most. He’s piloted more than a dozen different military aircraft in peace and at war, has logged more than 5,000 flight hours and logged more than 2,400 hours in instruction and evaluation.
Although he doesn’t fly as often as he did, his mission is clear — to pass on his love for flying to the next generation of pilots.
