By Christopher Gauger, EAA 746128, EAA Chapter Field Representative I
This piece originally ran in the February 2025 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
Dwayne Waters, EAA 422289, has been serving as president of Merritt Island EAA Chapter 724 since January 2019, and he was honored at the Chapter Leaders Breakfast at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2024 with the Major Achievement Award. Since being elected president, he has accomplished many things that have improved his chapter. For starters, he engaged his board of directors to rewrite and update the bylaws for the chapter.
Under Dwayne’s leadership, Chapter 724 launched a variety of new activities for its members to participate in. These include chili cook-offs, low-country boils, poker runs, fly-outs, and the EAA Flying Start program. The chapter is highly involved in the EAA Young Eagles and Flying Start programs, hosting three Young Eagles rallies per year including one for kids from Gold Star military families who lost a family member in the line of duty.
Dwayne is always looking for new ways to get young people excited about aviation. Aside from Young Eagles, the chapter also sponsors youths to attend the EAA Air Academy, participates in the EAA Ray Aviation Scholarship program, and provides its own scholarship for student pilots. Dwayne has served on Chapter 724’s scholarship committee since its inception and helped spearhead these scholarship efforts. His chapter also hosts a summer aviation camp for youths, where he serves as one of the camp’s instructors.
Under Dwayne’s leadership, Chapter 724 also participated in a Girls in Aviation event sponsored by the Florida Institute of Technology, and in the Florida Preparatory Academy’s Career and Aviation Day. These events allowed Dwayne and his chapter members to educate youths about aviation and the opportunities it provides.
Recently, Dwayne has been leading the way to getting a permanent home established for his chapter. After more than 40 years of meeting in borrowed spaces, Chapter 724 has started to work on building its own hangar at the local airport.
Outside of his chapter, Dwayne is heavily involved in aviation. He is a CFII and an A&P mechanic. He restored and flies a Piper Pacer that was converted from tricycle gear to a tail wheel, and his airplane has won awards at SUN ’n FUN. Dwayne started the Merritt Island Flying Club to give back to aviation by making affordable flying available. He is an instructor in the club and, as an A&P, maintains the club’s two aircraft. Dwayne has also served as a judge at National Intercollegiate Flying Association (NIFA) regional competitions for several years.
In his career, Dwayne worked for Lockheed space operations for many years, and he was one of the crew members who helped astronauts get into and out of the space shuttle. He was also a manager at the Orbiter Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. After the retirement of the space shuttle, Dwayne went to Embraer, the third-largest manufacturer of civil aircraft in the world, where he continues to work part time.
Volunteers make EAA AirVenture Oshkosh — and just about everything else EAA does — possible. This space in EAA Sport Aviation is dedicated to thanking and shining the spotlight on volunteers from the community. Sadly, it cannot capture all of the thousands of volunteers who give so much to the community every year. So, next time you see a volunteer at AirVenture or elsewhere, however they are pitching in to make EAA better, be sure to thank them for it. It’s the least we can do. Do you know a volunteer you’d like to nominate for Volunteer Spotlight? Visit EAA.org/Submissions.