2008 Woodie Awards
Aviation Professor Celebrates Career After Retirement
Wayne Dean: Muleskinner
Issue date: 4/10/08 Section: Features
The last place UCM Campus Safety might look to issue someone a parking ticket is on the second floor of a classroom building. You can't get a ticket if they can't find your car, or at least that is what long-time aviation professor Fred Schieszer decided.
After getting a parking ticket for parking his 1971 Honda 600, which he said was the smallest four-passenger car registered, in a motorcycle spot, he decided to move his car inside. He drove his car into the T.R. Gaines building, onto an elevator and down the hall to his second floor office. He never got a ticket.
Brave beginnings
Schieszer is no stranger to Warrensburg and UCM, as he graduated from then-Central Missouri College in 1971 with a degree in psychology.
"Back then, they didn't have an aviation major, so I had an emphasis in flight physiology," he said.
Schieszer worked his way through college serving at the Bear Creek Airport which was located on DD Highway. At the early age of 18, he got his private pilot license and has not stopped flying since.
After graduating, Schieszer went into the Coast Guard. At the mention of the Coast Guard, he perked up and sat straight in his chair.
"You ever see the movie 'The Guardian?'" he asked. "That movie almost perfectly depicted what I did. Everything they did, I did; only a lot more."
During his time in the Coast Guard, Schieszer said he was a one-man crew. On rescue helicopters, they now have four or five crewmen doing separate jobs, but in Schieszer's day, one man flew and one man rescued. He had to know how to be a rescue swimmer, work the equipment and navigate.
But his responsibilities didn't stop there.
"I delivered eight babies. Seven on a helicopter," he says. "Ashton Kutcher never delivered any babies."
He was stationed in San Francisco and Elizabeth City, N.C. during his time in the Coast Guard.
He soon returned to Warrensburg to get an aviation safety master's degree in 1976 and worked on his doctorate in higher education administration at the University of Missouri- Kansas City.
After getting a parking ticket for parking his 1971 Honda 600, which he said was the smallest four-passenger car registered, in a motorcycle spot, he decided to move his car inside. He drove his car into the T.R. Gaines building, onto an elevator and down the hall to his second floor office. He never got a ticket.
Brave beginnings
Schieszer is no stranger to Warrensburg and UCM, as he graduated from then-Central Missouri College in 1971 with a degree in psychology.
"Back then, they didn't have an aviation major, so I had an emphasis in flight physiology," he said.
Schieszer worked his way through college serving at the Bear Creek Airport which was located on DD Highway. At the early age of 18, he got his private pilot license and has not stopped flying since.
After graduating, Schieszer went into the Coast Guard. At the mention of the Coast Guard, he perked up and sat straight in his chair.
"You ever see the movie 'The Guardian?'" he asked. "That movie almost perfectly depicted what I did. Everything they did, I did; only a lot more."
During his time in the Coast Guard, Schieszer said he was a one-man crew. On rescue helicopters, they now have four or five crewmen doing separate jobs, but in Schieszer's day, one man flew and one man rescued. He had to know how to be a rescue swimmer, work the equipment and navigate.
But his responsibilities didn't stop there.
"I delivered eight babies. Seven on a helicopter," he says. "Ashton Kutcher never delivered any babies."
He was stationed in San Francisco and Elizabeth City, N.C. during his time in the Coast Guard.
He soon returned to Warrensburg to get an aviation safety master's degree in 1976 and worked on his doctorate in higher education administration at the University of Missouri- Kansas City.
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