By Robbie Culver
EAA chapters have a rich history regardless of how long they have been chartered. If you are a chapter leader looking to capture or document the history of your EAA chapter, EAA Chapter Field Representative Grace Yakuber has some ideas for you.
Preserving a chapter’s legacy starts with some good old-fashioned homework. Start a timeline. First, uncover when the chapter was founded. (If you’re not sure, EAA headquarters can provide some assistance.) Then find out who the founding members were. It takes 10 EAA members to start a chapter, and EAA has that information.
Headquarters has the original incorporation documents, original bylaws, limited chapter directories, and some chapter roster documents. Grace said, “With the total chapter count being close to 1,700 [and 900 of them active], it’s hard to keep track of everyone’s history!”
Learn more about your home. (Why is the chapter at the airport it is located on? Was it always there?) And see what chapter records are available. There may also be internal resources available, for example, longtime members you can interview, copies of newsletters, meeting minutes, etc.
See if the airport’s history includes relevant information about the chapter. Check newspapers and other local resources such as libraries, historical societies, and even obituaries. Once you begin to build and document the history, be sure to save it and digitize it for future members to have access to. And make it accessible; cloud storage and online drives can be used to share what is documented.
A force of nature with the power of the Energizer Bunny, combined with the buzz of several cups of coffee with extra sugar, and a bubbly personality that is downright infectious, EAA’s Grace is not new to aviation, but she is a relatively recent hire at EAA headquarters. To describe Grace as energetic is … an understatement.
Grace credits EAA Chapter 234 in Traverse City, Michigan, as the spark that began her journey to her current role.
“I get to travel around the country and share the tools and resources that EAA has to offer to our chapters,” she said. “There are almost 900 chapters that we have around the U.S. and beyond. Most of my primary function is creating new chapters, and I manage a couple of the programs that we offer chapters, and it’s really fun being able to interact with all the different chapters across the U.S. and learn about all of their individual specialties and everything that they choose to do within their communities.
“I love it so much. I came into this role, actually, last year at AirVenture,” she added. “I met John [Egan], and he told me about this upcoming available position, because my predecessor was going to have a baby, and she was going to be a full-time mom. So they knew that they were going to have to fill this position. I have been a longtime chapter member in my home chapter EAA 234 in Traverse City, Michigan. And I figured this would just be perfect to have that one-on-one with a bunch of people who just love the same things that I do, which is community and aviation.”
Chapters are the heart of EAA, and interacting with them is part of what Grace loves about her job. “The thing that excites me the most is that I get to carry on a legacy of chapters since 1954, and I get to be a part of that long history of these communities building themselves up and working to share The Spirit of Aviation. And I just think it’s so cool that I get to be a part of that.”
Every chapter is unique — some are focused on Young Eagles, some on building or restoring aircraft; some are more active than others, and some are just social — all of which is why we love them so much.
When I asked Grace what strikes her the most about the chapters, she said, “It’s how not every single one of them is the same. They all have very individual characteristics that really build their own communities. So they might have a specialty of being a vintage chapter or even like a Warbird chapter or a squadron or something like that. But mostly, they all have some focus, whether it’s youth and aviation or maybe a technical, building aircraft kind of style. But it’s really cool to talk to all of them and learn about what their specialty is.”
The job came with nice surprises, too.
“My biggest surprise I’ve had is how much I’ve fallen in love with it,” she said. “I come from a professional background in aviation, and so I knew that taking this was gonna be a lot more philanthropy working with chapters. But I didn’t expect to actually fall in love with it as much as I did. … I just love it.”
And the love is clearly genuine. It’s easy to pick up on the energy Grace gives.
“It really goes back into being a part of the legacy,” she said. “I have to carry that spirit forward and make sure that everybody else feels the same energy that I feel about chapters, because this is all just volunteer time in your community. You have to want to be here. You know, nobody’s telling anybody to be here. We’re all here because we want to be here. And everybody goes home after AirVenture, they go back to their chapter, and their first gathering in August is talking about AirVenture. And the chapters are what keeps The Spirit of Aviation alive the other 11 months of the year.”
And it’s true! We all come and see our aviation family, but when we leave, it is the chapters that continue to feed our love of aviation. Personally, I can feel it in the workshop when my wife and I are working on our project. And I can certainly feel it at our monthly gatherings and events.
EAA and aviation need a lot more of this energy. “I want to be the next generation that comes into the chapters department and understands where we came from, where we are right now, and try to find a goal for the future that we can all meet while still echoing what made chapters successful in the past,” Grace said.
It’s this writer’s opinion that we need a lot more of this in aviation and in EAA! Grace Yakuber exemplifies the best of EAA — and especially the heart and soul of what EAA is — which is chapters and community.