This piece originally ran in the March 2025 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
Andrew La Roche, EAA Lifetime 479669, volunteers at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh working for the trams, and he’s made it an entire family affair.
His introduction to aviation came when he was young, starting with his grandfather, Herb Ritzman, EAA 76158. His grandfather used to attend the fly-in convention and camp for the week, volunteering with trams starting back in 1984. By Andrew’s 13th birthday, he was volunteering with his brother, Joe La Roche, EAA Lifetime 474798; his uncle, Todd Ritzman, EAA Lifetime 268631; and his grandfather.
The affair began with the four of them working together, but now it’s expanded to the majority of the La Roche family, including Andrew’s wife and their two children, his brother Joe and his four kids, his sister Elizabeth Hayden and her two kids, his parents Susan and Jerry La Roche, EAA 560971, and his aunt Colleen Kerr, EAA 1140767, and two of her grandchildren. Some years they have other nieces and nephews join as well. They all work at the tram station, following in Andrew’s grandfather’s footsteps since his passing about 12 years ago.
The tram duties include a variety of evening maintenance to prepare them for the volunteers who drive them during the day. When the La Roche family started volunteering, there were at most eight trams. For AirVenture 2024, they had 33! At the end of every day, the La Roche family take the trams, clean them to look for any trash, fuel them, and then they wash them.
Andrew said it’s important to him to keep the family tradition alive with his own children, teaching them what it means to be an EAA volunteer.
“That part is the most important to me, just trying to carry on what he started. I know he was volunteering all the way until he had passed,” Andrew said. “So that aspect is important to me and my family.
“From our perspective, we have to train our kids to be able to take over for us,” he explained. “I think one way or the other, I expect that we’ll be doing this through the rest of our life and am kind of hoping that the next generation continues it, too.”
Helping others is why Andrew’s grandfather started volunteering in the first place, Andrew said, and that those roots are what led him to search for an opportunity to help people out.
“Anytime you can volunteer … especially these days to just give [your] time back toward something,” Andrew explained. “We’ve always appreciated EAA, and we have many pilots in our family, so we appreciate their show.”
Volunteering with EAA has also created a second family for the La Roches, and the connections that they make keep them coming back for more.
“You grow an expectation that it’s almost like a family reunion where when we show up, you’re expecting certain people to be there,” Andrew said.
The La Roche family will only continue to grow their connection with EAA and with their family’s history. The affair started with one, but it’s so much bigger than that now.
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.