By Robbie Culver
Attending EAA AirVenture Oshkosh can be a life-changing event. Glen Matejcek (rhymes with “paycheck”), EAA 151163, who is attending his 50th AirVenture in 2025, said his early attendance solidified his aviation interest and career. Glen attended his first EAA convention in 1975 as a teenager while enrolled in aviation courses that included prep for the private and instrument ratings at Lyons Township High School in the Chicago suburb of La Grange, Illinois.
He credits his teacher Bill Garton for telling him about the EAA conventions in Rockford and Oshkosh — Bill served in the U.S. Air Force for many years and had tours in Korea and Vietnam. He was a crew member on B-36s, and he was a crew chief on F-100s. Glen described Bill as a “very interesting guy, very effective teacher, very approachable.”
Glen’s first year at Oshkosh was between his junior and senior years of high school. He traveled with a couple of buddies, and they camped out not far from a line of P-51 Mustangs. “There’s nothing quite like an aviation-infatuated teenager waking up to the sound of a Merlin cranking up 40 feet away,” he said.
“I ended up learning to fly, became a flight instructor, did instructing in airplanes and in gliders, flying some acro, teaching some acro in airplanes and in gliders, hauling skydivers, towing gliders, all that sort of stuff,” Glen said. “And ultimately, got an airline job. It had never really been a goal of mine to be an airline pilot. I just wanted to fly, and finances are a lot better if somebody pays you than you pay to go fly. And then I got busy with life, and GA became less prevalent in my life, but it’s always been my primary interest.”
Eventually, Glen got a job flying a 19-seat turboprop for Jetstream International Airlines, which was bought out by Piedmont and eventually US Airways. Then he was furloughed a few months after September 11, 2001. After stints at NetJets and Virgin America, he spent 12 years at Kalitta Air and retired in 2023 as a captain on the 747-400. A founding member and past president of EAA Chapter 1311 in Avon, Indiana, Glen is now a snowbird between Indianapolis and Texas.
Along the way, Glen became involved with the American Military Heritage Foundation, which preserved a 1945 Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon named Hot Stuff. “It’s a rare airplane,” he said. “There weren’t that many built. It came out at the end of the war, and it’s a 4,000-hp taildragger, which is interesting. It makes a glorious roar when you push the power up; it flies well. It looks a lot like a giant Twin Beech. If you can imagine a Twin Beech with a 75-foot wingspan.”
In 2005 the Harpoon was at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, and Glen flew it in for a static display, taking his aviation career back to its roots.
Glen mentioned he had met EAA founder Paul Poberezny a number of times while he was at the convention volunteering. He had an opportunity to talk to speak with him once in the Founders’ Wing. “I just wanted to tell him thank you, because he did have a profound impact on the course of my life,” he said. “Poberezny grinned from ear to ear and said, ‘Thank you, my son,’ Grabbed me and gave me a big wet kiss on the cheek, which startled me a little bit. But it was a pretty cool moment.”