When Passion Took Wing

At some point in their academic career almost every student sets down their pencil, throws up their arms, and asks, “what is the value of this? Where will it take me?” Dan Mikkelsen, founder and CEO of Giving Kids Wings Flight Academy, was no different. What changed his life and ignited his passion to help others find their way?

During his sophomore year of high school, Dan had a rare opportunity to take an experimental aviation course at Naperville North High School. This course was a complete, private, pilot ground school taught by a veteran flight instructor. The experience revealed to him how exciting and empowering math and science concepts could be when taught in an engaging and relevant context. “I looked forward to going to the class every day,” Dan remembers. Thus the dream of Giving Kids Wings Flight Academy took root in his imagination, almost two decades before it would fly.

In August of 2005, Dan relocated to California to teach in the urban high schools of South Los Angeles. In his first year he led about 20 students on a field trip to Compton Airport’s annual aviation fair. Witnessing the wonder and delight of two of his students as they experienced flight for the very first time moved him deeply.

Over the next four years Dan led some twenty field trips to airports in Compton, Torrance, Hawthorne, and Los Angeles. On each visit students got to pilot planes and learn about aviation careers. Meanwhile, that old dream of Dan’s was stirring: it was time to leave the nest of imagination and fly into reality.

In December of 2008, with the invaluable help of Sheryl Turner, Giving Kids Wings Flight Academy (GKWFA) was founded. Its mission was and is:

• To excite and engage students in the fields of math and science
• To increase the number of minorities and females in aviation-related careers
• To lead educational innovation in the public school system

In the fall of 2011, GKWFA formed its first partnership, with DaVinci Science High School in Wiseburn, CA, to offer ground training, computer flight simulator instruction, first flight and professional training opportunities as a bundled elective class available to all of that school’s students. Since then GKWFA has joined hands with four more schools to bring its programmatic and consulting educational and aviation services to an ever-growing number of students.

Working with both schools and aviation groups, as of Q1 2022 GKWFA has provided hopeful, young men and women with 122 first flight lessons, 13 aircraft solos, and 8 licenses and ratings.  Over $130,000 has been invested in programmatic services since its inception, helping kids to find answers to those age-old questions: What is education for? What will it do for me? What can I do with this in the world?

It’s in the name: Giving Kids Wings Flight Academy helps students to see their own amazing potential and to embrace it. It helps them look forward to learning and life – to give their passion wings.