Seventy-five minutes into a conversation with retired Army Lt. Col. Michael Hales, new director of the Delaware State University Aviation Department, he celebrates a student pilot’s first solo flight by pouring a 30-gallon trash can full of water over the student’s head.
“Normally, we cut the shirttail off a student after their first solo, but he was wearing his uniform shirt,” says Hales.
So, Hales improvised. He and the soaking-wet student pilot stand beaming in a large puddle of water. The moment is emblematic of the new direction the Aviation Department is taking. It is also a sign of the improvisational leadership style Hales employs to boost the department.
The student, Elias Stephens, a U.S. veteran, is part of the new breed of student pilots Hales is attracting to the Dover, Delaware-based university’s aviation program.
Delaware State has a proud aviation history, stretching back to the original Tuskegee Airmen project. In the late 1930s, six historically Black colleges, including DSU, took part in recruiting and screening potential Black pilots. After the United States entered WWII, the project was consolidated. Eligible pilots from all the schools were transferred to Tuskegee. The other five schools eventually suspended their programs.
DSU revived its program in 1987. Thirty years later, under the leadership of Hales, the program is poised to undergo its largest expansion ever.
“When I interviewed for this job, I presented a comprehensive plan,” he says.
