COPA Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients

Roger is a retired high tech executive who left the executive life to spend more time in aviation. He likes to say work was interfering with his flying. Having made a deposit in April 1997 he ended up taking delivery of SR22 SN 0009 on May 2nd 2001. Always a mechanic at heart, after retirement in 2006 he focused on the mechanical aspects of aircraft. He started building a RV7A and assisting A&P’s on various work. After logging 6000 Mx hours he achieved his A&P rating and later his Inspection Authorization. Today Roger still owns and flies SN 0009. Today it really does not resemble the plane he bought 21 1/2 years ago. Roger is constantly modifying and upgrading it making N122G one of the most modified planes in the fleet. He is married with two children and one grandchild. He served on the COPA Board of Directors for 10 years. 

Originally active on SR20.org, Seckler became a member of COPA when that organization initially formed. Since that time he has been active on the Forums, served as a COPA Board Member, a member of 4 Migration Committees, the original Moderation Committee, and from 2000-2023 was President of the Board of Trustees of the COPA Safety and Education Foundation.

Active in the CPPPs, Seckler served five years as the Dean of the College of Flight Operations of COPA University, the training and education arm of that organization. He regularly teaches at the Cirrus Pilot Proficiency Program and presents classes on aviation weather, preflight briefings, instrument procedures, regulations, aeronautical decision making, and, his favorite, the Partner in Command Class.  He has taught at about 125 CPPPs over the last 20 years.

He has flown about 8000 hours, all in GA aircraft, and holds an ATP certificate as well as CFII, AGI and IGI certificates.  He has been named a Master Ground Instructor 4 consecutive times by the National Association of Flight Instructors.

Seckler has also flown over 125 Angel Flights and served on Angel Flight Central’s Safety Committee for several years.

Six years ago, he was honored to receive the FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for 50 years of safe flying.

In a previous life Seckler was a Urologic Surgeon as well as an FAA Aviation Medical Examiner.

Currently Seckler owns a 2001 Cirrus SR22, N1970, which he picked up new from the factory in July 2001.  He keeps the aircraft at Chicago’s DuPage County Airport and has flown it for 3900 hours.

Mike was born with aviation in his blood.  He has been fascinated by flying as long as he can remember.   He learned to fly in his native South Africa, at the Algoa Flying Club of Port Elizabeth, in 1975.  He quickly added certificates and ratings and became a flight instructor.

In 1979 he moved to New York, where he met his wife, Lillian.  They are proud parents of Max and Ilana, and grandparents of Ilana’s daughter, Ariceli.  They will soon celebrate their 40th anniversary.

After owning various airplanes, Mike took delivery of his first Cirrus – SR20 N84MR – early in 2001 (it was later replaced by SR22 N1MR, since renamed N64MR).  By then, he and a small group of Cirrus enthusiasts had laid the foundation for COPA, and Mike soon took on the role of President.   COPA has brought him great joy and introduced him to some of the finest aviators on the planet.

Mike’s flying adventures have taken him all over the world, with Cirrus flights to the Arctic, South America, Europe, and Australia.   Mike now lives the retired life in Las Vegas, but he can’t sit still – he spends a great deal of time instructing as a Platinum CSIP, focusing on Emergency Procedures and Partner In Command training, and spends as much time as possible in formation flight.   He looks forward with eager anticipation to “the second half of my flying career” 😊

Rick Beach serves as the Aviation Safety Chair of COPA and was recognized with the COPA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021. His safety stand down presentations over the years have inspired changes that keep Cirrus pilots safe, especially the use of CAPS. He synthesizes insights gained from CPPP instructors, accident investigators and numerous forum discussions about safety topics. He has owned an SR22 since 2001 and has over 3700 hours and currently flies for pleasure out of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dale Klapmeier was born in Rockford, Illinois and grew up in DeKalb, Illinois. As a child, he and his two
brothers built model airplanes and rode their bicycles to the local airport to dream of their future as pilots.
He started flying at the age of 15, before learning to drive a car, and at age 18, discovered a wrecked
Champion aircraft in northern Wisconsin. Dale and his brother Alan bought and restored that Champ,
thus beginning their careers into building aircraft. The following year, at the 1980 EAA AirVenture show in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the two witnessed the introduction of the Glasair I. Their purchase and construction
of that kit is what would help inspire the founding of Cirrus Aircraft.

Dale graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in December 1983 and the following
month founded Cirrus with Alan in the basement of a barn on their parents’ rural farmland near Baraboo,
Wisconsin. They chose the name “Cirrus” in remembrance of a childhood summer drive from Wisconsin
to Illinois when they witnessed fair-weather cirrus clouds blanketing the horizon and wished they were
flying. Their first design was the VK-30 homebuilt aircraft, which they introduced at the 1987 EAA
Convention. From their experience building and marketing the VK-30, the Klapmeier brothers decided
that technological innovation, ease-of-operation, and driving safety to a new level would be at the
forefront of all their future designs. Dale had the personal goal of working to create a certified aircraft that
his wife would feel more comfortable traveling in, which led to the conception of the SR20. In 1994, the
brothers moved company operations from Baraboo to Duluth, Minnesota, and since then, Cirrus has
revolutionized the general aviation (GA) industry with the use of composite materials, fully integrated
glass-panel cockpits, and whole-airframe ballistic parachute systems—a standard device on Cirrus
aircraft that has saved more than 250 lives to date.

Under the leadership of Dale and his team, Cirrus has been the world's largest producer of piston aircraft
since 2013, delivering over 10,000 SR-series aircraft in 25 years of production. Today, the SR22 (which is
now on display in the Smithsonian) remains the world’s best-selling GA airplane for the last 20+ years. In
2016, Dale’s team completed the certification process and began deliveries of the industry's first
single-engine personal jet: the SF50 Vision Jet, which in 2018 became the best-selling GA jet and was
awarded the prestigious 2017 Collier Trophy. He helped the company continue to expand beyond their
Duluth, Minnesota and Grand Forks, North Dakota facilities, opening a new customer delivery center in
Knoxville, Tennessee and a factory-direct service center in McKinney, Texas. Dale led Cirrus’s initial
efforts to adopt Garmin’s Collier-winning Autoland technology in the Vision Jet, and retired as CEO in
2019. He continues to promote the company and tell its story to new customers and aviation enthusiasts
alike. Cirrus now has a workforce of over 2,500 people with operations in seven states across the U.S.,
including Florida, Arizona and Michigan.

In addition to numerous aviation industry and entrepreneurial awards, Dale and Alan were formally
inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2014 and ranked the 17th most influential figures in
aviation history by Flying Magazine. In 2015, Dale became enshrined in the Minnesota Business Hall of
Fame, and in 2022, the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame.

Passionate about expanding all forms of aviation learning, Dale has served on several boards and
programs throughout his career, including the EAA’s Young Eagles Program, the Red Tail Project,
NASA’s Aeronautics Research & Technology Roundtable, chairing its GA subcommittee, and the
founding boards of both AirSpace Minnesota and the Scott D. Anderson Leadership Foundation. He is
currently on the board of the Endeavor Awards, an annual event that raises money for charitable flight
organizations. With nearly 8,000 hours of flight time throughout his life, Dale has been a licensed pilot for
over 45 years.