Mark baker's entry into general aviation is classic, quintessential-a textbook case. As a kid he rode his bicycle to the airport and sidled up to the old guys there to hear flying stories while he freely poked around the airplanes, bumming rides when he could. No fences, security gates, or threatening signs. He took ground school while in high school, but once he went to the University of Minnesota he learned he could get credit for the class, so he took it again. While in college in the mid-1970s he sold his van to buy his first airplane, a 1968 Cessna ISO. At the time he was working at a lumber yard for about $8 an hour. "With gas at about 80 cents a gallon, I could fly for $4 an hour," he told AOPA staff in August a few hours after he was introduced as the next president and CEO of the association.
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