By Kim Rosenlof
A recent night flight brought a friend of mine and me to Ernest A. Love Field in Prescott. At first, we had a rough time distinguishing the airport from the busy lights of the mountain-nestled town, but once we were over Prescott Valley, we could see quite a few aircraft in what had to be the traffic pattern of a busy airport. Switching to Prescott's arrival frequency, the radio buzzed with traffic.
"Prescott Tower, November Two Six Seven Echo Romeo five miles south of Prescott, landing with Lima."
"Two Six Seven Echo Romeo, Prescott Tower," the tower came back, giving quick instructions. As soon as he finished with N267ER, another pilot was quick to call in.
"Prescott Tower, Four Eight One Echo Romeo, reporting two miles east of the airport."
In less than a minute, at least four Echo Romeo aircraft had called in to the tower, reporting various incoming positions.
This seemed to be the normal routine at Love Field, as I immediately recognized the Echo Romeo endings of the aircraft "N" numbers as those belonging to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Prescott campus. What would have been normally a quite traffic pattern at another airport of Prescott's size was a beehive of activity, even at night, due to the activities of the world's largest aviation university's western campus.
Founded by an Aviation Pioneer
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Embry-Riddle) has a history that reaches back to the barnstorming days of aviation.
Founders located Embry-Riddle at Lunken Field in Cincinnati, destined to become the first municipal airport in the U.S. and incorporated it in 1926 as a combination Waco distributorship, Air Mail carrier, passenger and cargo carrier, and flight school.
It's name came from John Paul Riddle, a 25-year old Kentuckian with a passion for aviation and Talton Higbee Embry, a 29-year old son of Cincinnati business elite. Riddle brought six years of aviation experience, including mechanic and pilot training from the U.S. Army Air Corps. to the partnership, while Embry provided the financial backing and business connections.
The original company survived only four years, being swallowed up in 1930 by the Aviation Corporation of Delaware, which Embry and Riddle had helped create. However, Riddle revived the Embry-Riddle name in the later years of the Depression, establishing an enterprise for training pilots of several allied countries before and during World War II.
From 1938 to 1966, Embry-Riddle was in Miami, Fla., although its name changes as the entity expanded its educational options from flight school to aviation institute to accredited university.
Moving to Daytona Beach, Fla., in 1966, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University administrators and students began to build a campus worthy of a university status with programs ranging from flight to maintenance, to aviation business, to aeronautical engineering. But as the university grew, administrators projected that they would quickly run out of room, even in their new quarters.
A Find at Prescott
In the mid 1970's, classes at Daytona Beach were reaching capacity, and Embry-Riddle President Jack R. Hunt began to look for ways to handle the overflow of students. He happened across a brochure from the Prescott College Mortgage Trust, a group of investors of the bankrupt Prescott College who owned a vacant campus spanning 510 acres approximately seven miles northeast of downtown Prescott and two miles from Ernest A. Love Field.
Prescott College so swiftly vacated its10-year old campus on December 18, 1974, per bankruptcy proceedings, that the classrooms and offices looked as if the teachers and students would return to studies the next day. Prescott College did eventually return, but to a different site in Prescott.
This was the condition that Hunt and a few members of the Embry-Riddle Board of Trustees found when they visited the old Prescott College grounds in 1977.
Immediately taken with the beauty of the Prescott area, Hunt envisioned a western campus that would give Embry-Riddle both geographical and academic diversity. The area held several positive aspects for the university: an airport close to campus, a self-contained campus close to a medium-sized town, and enough land to expand the campus as the university grew.
While Embry-Riddle administrators researched the idea of buying the Prescott College campus, Prescott residents expressed mixed feelings about having Embry-Riddle move in. Many residents were resentful toward colleges in general, having supported both Grand Canyon University, which was founded in Prescott, but moved to Phoenix in the 1950s, and the then defunct Prescott College.
Some residents discouraged local governments from dealing with Embry-Riddle on issues of fees and airport construction, fearing that this university would also "take flight" after a short time. Other residents opposed the university due to what they imagined as Daytona Beach spring-breaker-type students invading the quit Prescott community.
It was Arizona Barry Goldwater who changed the tide of public opinion against Embry-Riddle.
A friend of aviation who received an honorary doctorate from Embry-Riddle in 1975, Goldwater supported Embry-Riddle's western expansion and became a member of Embry-Riddle's Board of Trustees. Once it was known that Prescott's own Goldwater was a university affiliate, any community malice toward Embry-Riddle dwindled. According to Brigadier General William W. Spruance, chairman of Embry-Riddle's Board of Trustees at the time, " We would not have an Embry-Riddle campus or an Air Force ROTC program at Prescott without Barry Goldwater.
In addition to swaying public opinion in Prescott, Goldwater's "stature to influence Congress and Arizona legislatures was pivotal to get the campus situated and ensure its success in the early years." Spruance said.
Since the senator's recent death, Embry-Riddle has established the Barry Goldwater Memorial Fund to provide scholarships for students in aviation safety programs.
New Paint Smell
In January 1978, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the Prescott Collage Mortgage Trust entered into an agreement whereby Embry-Riddle would acquire the vacant campus. Hunt planned to use the campus initially as a high-school preparatory school, but at a tuition of $12,000 per year, few parents enrolled their kids in the program.
In March 1978, the Embry-Riddle Board of Trustees scrapped the prep school program and initiated plans for college-level academics at the Prescott campus.
The doors opened for the first class of Embry-Riddle students in the fall of 1978, with only one degree offered: bachelor of science in aeronautical science.
Because of overcrowding on the Daytona Beach campus, newly accepted flight students had been given a choice to start academics at Daytona Beach while being placed on a year-long waiting list for flight openings, or transfer to the Prescott campus and begin flying and academics immediately. More than 250 students chose the latter option, and the Prescott campus began flying its first students in September 1978.
Embry-Riddle spent six months refurbishing the Prescott College buildings and organizing the campus. Workmen added partitions to some of the campus buildings and made repairs to the sewage treatment plant. On September 1, the first day of classes, some classrooms still needed paint and some parts of the campus were still under construction. The students, faculty and staff were proud of being part of a new enterprise, even if the paint smell and sawdust in the air were inconvenient.
Construction at the Prescott campus sisn't stop with the completion of the initial building repairs. Over the past 20 years, 25 new buildings were constructed at the cost of $20.4 million, including additions to existing buildings.
Generous contributions from aviation benefactors made some possible. Grants from the Federal Aviation Administration, King Avionics, Honeywell and other corporations financed King Engineering Center, an electrical engineering complex. The Robertson Aviation Safety Center, along with its eight-acre Safety Investigation laboratory of reconstructed crash sites for crash investigation and safety courses, was the gift of aviation safety specialist S. Harry Robertson. Other improvements to the campus include a new gymnasium, student resident halls, an expanded cafeteria and a visitors center.
In spring 1998, the campus gained a chief operation officer, Cap Parlier, whose former industry positions include chief information officer of Raytheon Aircraft, vice-president of engineering for Raytheon Corporate Jets in England, manager of flight test for Beech Aircraft, former senior experimental test pilot and executive with McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Company in Mesa, and experimental test pilot for Huges Helicopters. One of Parlier's primary objectives is to continue to expand campus facilities.
"We hope to fund several building projects, without additional tuition dollars, that will enhance student learning," said Parlier.
Academic choices have also expanded over the years, from offering only flight-related degrees in the late 1970s. to offering degrees in aviation business, aeronautical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science in the 1980s.
Today at Prescott, more than 1,500 students seek baccalaureate degrees in areas that include aeronautical science (flight), aerospace, electrical and computer engineering, computer science, aerospace studies, and science, technology and globalization, an interdisciplinary major for the global work environment.
Late this summer, Dr. Peter Quigley, a Fulbright scholar, was selected as dean of academics/chief academic officer of the Prescott campus. Quigley, who has taught humanities courses at Embry-Riddle since 1980, will work to expand both undergraduate and graduate offerings with programs that are timely and relevant tp Embry-Riddle's industry niche.
Love Field Gets Busier
The first Embry-Riddle Prescott planes, 15 four-seat Grumman Tigers, came to Love Field in August 1978. With Embry-Riddle's arrival at Love Field, the traffic at the airport promptly doubled, causing some initial consternation among local pilots because the field did not have an FAA tower at the time.
As the student population grew, so did the number and type of aircraft in the Prescott fleet. Construction of a large administration building and dedicated ramp at Love Field began shortly after the delivery of the Embry-Riddle fleet.
By 1980, the student population had grown to more than 800 students, and there were more than 40 aircraft on the Riddle ramp, consisting mostly of Grumman Tigers and Cessna 172s. During the 1980s, the university added Piper Seminoles to the fleet to provide multi-engine training, and phased out the Grummans in favor of Cessnas.
Currently, the Prescott campus operates a fleet of 58 aircraft to support its students, approximately one-half of whom are aeronautical science (flight) students. The university built a new administration building on the south side of Love Field, housing FRASCA simulators, offices for two dozen flight instructors and staff, and providing ramp space for the fleet.
Thirty-eight Cessna 172s used for primary, instrument and commercial flight training, three Cessna 172s with retractable gear used for complex aircraft training, a Cessna 150 used by the nationally-ranked Golden Eagles Flight Team, a Cessna 152 Aerobat used for interagency recovery technique training, two Cessna 340 twin-engine used for crew resource management training and 13 Beechcraft Dutchess twins used in multiengine craft flight training and charter operations are parked on the new Riddle ramp.
Greatly due to the amount of flight training done by Embry-Riddle, Love Field is now the second busiest airport in Arizona, after Sky Harbor, with 351,000 operations in 1997.
This increase in operations prompted federal officials to approve building a temporary FAA tower at Love Field in 1985, resulting in more organized operations between the students and local pilots. The current permanent control tower began operation in December 1988.
Part of the Prescott Community
Over the past 20 years, Embry-Riddle students, faculty and staff have become an important part of the community, both as overall citizens of Prescott and the surrounding area and as members of the aviation community. Students hold jobs as area businesses, providing a relatively stable low-wage, yet technically savvy work force. The majority of faculty and staff are from Arizona, with the new faculty sharing their knowledge with the community through volunteer work or holding secondary positions.
The involvement of Embry-Riddle students in community and social services is impressive. Student organizations on campus participate in many fund-raisers and other events that support community causes. Embry-Riddle students chip in with Habitat for Humanity, undertake clothing drives for families in need, and keep local stretches of highway litter free.
The student chapter of the Arnold Air Society, an honorary service organization of cadets from the campus Air Force ROTC detachment, works with United Blood Services and the Veterans Medical Center. Embry-Riddle student members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers share their time and interests with Granite Mountain Middle School students in a computer club.
Last winter, the student chapter of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics joined forces with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Boeing to bring airplane models, an aviation scanner and a flight in a Boeing helicopter to a boy in northern Arizona with a severe heart defect.
Embry-Riddle's Prescott campus has also cast a spotlight on Arizona for several accomplishments. Every time the Golden Eagles Flight Team wins regional or national flight competitions, or the Embry-Riddle electric car competes well in the APS Electrics, or aeronautical engineering students take a prize in a Society for Automotive Engineering competition, recognition of students in Arizona allows everyone in Arizona to take pride at the great job being done on campus.
This community pride was apparent in 1993, when the Embry-Riddle administration looked at consolidating its facilities at the vacated Williams Air Force Base outside of Phoenix.
The Prescott community, both on and off the campus, clamored to keep Embry-Riddle in Prescott. Indeed, the community ties between the city of Prescott and Embry-Riddle have been such that leaders of the two entities have become co-mingled over the years.
When the Prescott campus first opened, Prescott Mayor Larry Caldwell accepted a position at Embry-Riddle as plant superintendent, which initially raised some eyebrows around Prescott, and the current Mayor of Prescott, Paul Daly, had served as the chancellor of the Prescott campus for more than a decade.
Prevailing against hard times in the aviation business, the threat of closure by university administrators, and the tide of Prescott public opinion, Embry-Riddle campus has thrived over the last 20 years, becoming part of the aviation landscape in Arizona and part of the community of Prescott.
Generating over $38 million in annual economic revenue and providing jobs to more than 300 employees, Embry-Riddle has become an important thread in the fabric of the Prescott community, one that is sure to grow in terms of value over the next 20 years.
Kim Rosenlof is a technical writer and documentation specialist for Honeywell Industrial Automation and Control on Phoenix. She graduated from Embry-Riddle's Daytona Beach campus in 1993 with a BS degree in aviation business administration and aerospace studies with minors in Mathematics and air traffic control. She is linked to the Prescott campus by marriage to Dean Rosenlof, a 1995 Embry-Riddle graduate of Prescott's Aerospace Engineering degree program. In addition to her regular job, Rosenlof also serves as a staff writer for "Arizona Flyways," the Wing Public Affairs Officer for the Arizona Wing of Civil Air Patrol, media relations chairman of the Copperstate Regional EAA Fly-in, held in Mesa, and treasurer of the Desert Eagles Embry-Riddle Alumni Chapter in Phoenix.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Numbers: (). Reuse only by permission.
When Embry-Riddle at Prescott opened in 1978, the only major was aeronautical science (flight) and the primary use of computers by students was to check daily flight schedules. Today, computer science and computer engineering are among Embry-Riddle Prescott's eight degree programs. More than 1,500 students share 200 campus computers dedicated to student use.
In 1980, John Olsen (left), Embry-Riddle trustee and longtime Prescott are businessman, and Harry Miller, former provost of Embry-Riddle and retired executive director for Prescott-area Habitat for Humanity, broke ground for the third, fourth, and fifth student resident halls on the campus.