T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY -- Brian Appelgate of Green Mountain is celebrating his 50-year anniversary as a mechanic at the Marshalltown Municipal Airport on Monday.

In 1969, Brian Appelgate, then a student at Garwin High School, started taking flying lessons with Niederhauser Aviation and even got a chance to take his first solo flight out near his parents’ house. After he graduated from GHS the following year, he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do with his life, but he knew he liked planes and aviation.

Appelgate spent the next year and a half working construction, but his mind kept drifting upward to the sky.

“I had a Triumph motorcycle, and I couldn’t figure out how that thing was going, so I thought ‘Well, if I go to aviation school, maybe I’ll learn something,'” he said.

In 1972, he headed to Tulsa, Okla. for an 18-month aviation school program and completed it. Appelgate considered a few options, including a chance to move the Kwajalein island chain in the south Pacific, but ultimately decided he would stay closer to home and, originally at least, planned to work for Morton Buildings.

But when he got an offer from the Marshalltown Municipal Airport to come onboard as a mechanic, he couldn’t say no. His first day was Sept. 23, 1974, and Appelgate is still at it a half century later.

“I felt very confident in the fact that I was at a place where they were doing what I liked to do. They had lots of things that I could get my hands into and a lot of stuff upstairs, a lot of old stuff that I could tear it up, fix it up, all of those kinds of things,” he said. “I determined from that time on that I like it here.”

At the time, there were three mechanics on staff, and today, Appelgate is the only one left. He hopes to find his replacement sometime in the relatively near future so that he can eventually retire. Back then, if they didn’t have a plane to work on, they would paint fire trucks for American Fire Apparatus at the airport.

The aviation field in general has transformed majorly over the last 50 years, and the Marshalltown Airport itself has recently received quite a facelift with the renovation of the terminal and hangar. Appelgate has seen it all, and he reflected on some of the changes last week with his milestone anniversary looming.

“There was a time when there was more demand for us. There’s always been a demand, but there were a lot more aircraft in those early years,” he said. “It was just getting into, more or less, some of the corporate aircraft… just some smaller ones like Cessna 310s, Aztecs, things of that nature.”

While he’s done plenty of work for corporate clients like Fisher/Emerson over the years, Appelgate said the majority of their current jobs are for private individuals and crop dusters. Sadly, he doesn’t see a large crop of youngsters showing interest in the aviation field locally, and he’d like to see that change.

“This is a major problem. I know that we don’t have the schools (with aviation programs) that we once did. The only school we have is Indian Hills, and then recently, there’s an upstart of a school over in Cedar Rapids affiliated with Kirkwood,” he said. “So maybe that will convince some young people to move into it. Right now, I’ll have people come in occasionally and they’ll say ‘Boy, I’d sure like to do this.’ But we have tried it before to hire somebody off the street, and it just seems like after a period of time, they leave.”

And for many small municipal airports like this one, which is located about four miles north of the city limits, many people don’t even know they exist or what purpose they serve. Owning a private aircraft isn’t a cheap endeavor, of course, and Appelgate, who no longer flies himself but did for many years, speculated that the overall decline in aviation could be attributed to people putting their money toward other things.

At 72, Appelgate, who resides in Green Mountain with his wife Janice, is past retirement age, but he doesn’t have any intention of leaving until a succession plan is in place.

“I have a devotion to my customers. You know, I want to help the guys out here at the airport. I am the only one, and we are actively trying to find somebody to come and work,” he said. “Unfortunately, it just hasn’t been panning out too well, but then again, I don’t believe that’s totally my problem… There is such a massive need for people. At this (Fixed Base Operator airport), I work on airplanes. I work on fuel trucks. I work on snow plows. I work on the tub to pull things around with (and) all the ground support equipment. I work on hangar doors if they’re broken. I love the variety.”

So until he finds his replacement, he’ll be keeping busy and waiting for the next challenge to present itself, and he’ll keep leaning on his strong faith in God.

“The mechanic is the best friend a pilot never knew he had,” he said. “Every airplane that goes out of here, you know, it’s not a wing and a prayer. It’s a prayer and a wing, and I pray over every aircraft that I shove out the door.”

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.