Cheseapeake Airline Founder Awarded Posthumous Honorary Doctorate

Dr. John P. Johnson, president of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and Dr. Richard Heist, provost, will present a posthumous honorary doctorate to Samuel M. Goldman on Saturday, May 31 at a private ceremony in the University’s College of Aviation atrium.

Goldman’s daughter and son-in-law, Barbara and Roger Schwarz, will accept the degree. Also attending the ceremony are Gregory Schwarz (Goldman’s grandson and an Embry-Riddle alumnus), his wife, Angela, and their children, Sydney and Alec; as well as Daniel Schwarz (Goldman’s grandson), his wife, Michelle, and their children, Michael and Jessica.

Sam Goldman, who died in 2007, started Chesapeake Airlines in 1947 -- one of the earliest airlines in the United States. It was eventually purchased by the Du Pont family and evolved into Allegheny Airlines, the forerunner of US Airways. In 1949, he founded Chesapeake Airways Service Corp., one of the largest dealers of used aircraft parts in the country. Throughout his working career of more than 50 years, he donated aircraft and parts to museums around the nation, including the Smithsonian Institution.

"Sam’s initial connection with Embry-Riddle began in 1965," said Bob Rockett, dean of the University’s Heritage Project. "He was flying a Cessna 310 from the Bahamas when he lost an engine. He landed in Daytona Beach, where he met Embry-Riddle’s first president, Jack R. Hunt."

Goldman, who advised Hunt on aircraft acquisitions and issues facing the aviation industry, was impressed and humbled that he could count the “president of the finest aviation school in the world” as one of his friends. When asked to help the University, he generously donated several airplanes, whose sale generated over $1 million.

In recognition of his relationship with and contributions to Embry-Riddle, the Samuel Goldman Center/Aviation Maintenance Science Complex was named as a tribute to him in the mid-1970s. A special place of honor will be dedicated to his memory in the Aviation Maintenance Science department in the University’s new state-of-the-art Aviation Complex.

FMI: www.embryriddle.edu