His Vision Took Flight
Carl E. Guell had a teacher’s patience, an aviator’s confidence, and a preservationist’s instinct. Long before the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame existed he was already doing the work that would define it - collecting stories, documenting scenes from the sky, and showing people why aviation matters.
Born in Fond du Lac on September 4, 1919, Guell grew up on East Eighth Street, in a house that still stands much as it did in the 1930s. His father worked as a welder for the Soo Line, sparking Carl’s lifelong fascination with transportation—especially railroads. A student athlete, he played basketball and football at Oshkosh State Teachers College, balancing competition with curiosity about how the world worked.
When World War II came, Guell entered the U.S. Army Air Corps through the Missouri Air National Guard’s 110th Observation Squadron. He earned his pilot’s wings at Kelly Field, Texas, in December 1941, and later flew tactical reconnaissance missions in Bell P-39 Airacobras and Curtiss P-40 Warhawks. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after serving in the Southwest Pacific and later with the U.S. Air Force Reserve in Wisconsin.
Returning to Fond du Lac, Guell joined the thousands of veterans finding their footing after the war. He sought to merge his two callings—education and aviation—and found his opportunity with the Wisconsin Aeronautics Commission. Although he didn’t win the position of State Aeronautics Director in 1945 (that job went to fellow Army Air Force pilot Lester Maitland), Guell joined the commission as an education consultant after Former Flying Tiger and naval aviator Fritz Wolf, another future WAHF inductee, was hired. Together, they helped guide Wisconsin’s young aviation agency into the modern era.
Guell’s duties took him to airports across the state, where he met pilots, mechanics, and airport managers and listened to their stories. Those visits quietly shaped the rest of his life. During his long tenure with the commission—and later WisDOT’s Bureau of Aeronautics—Guell became known as the “father of the aerial field trip.” His belief was simple and profound: that a single hour in the air could reveal lessons a lifetime on the ground could not, showing students how rivers carved towns, how farms followed the land, and how transportation linked communities. Carl was no stranger to a microphone—he traveled frequently promoting airports and aviation, speaking to civic groups, flying clubs, PTAs, and classrooms, always eager to show how aviation connected to everyday life.
Carl’s curiosity extended to history, and by the late 1940s he began gathering the stories of those who had shaped Wisconsin’s aviation beginnings. His enthusiasm soon caught the attention of the State Historical Society’s Dora M. Drews, who shared his vision for documenting the state’s aviation story. On May 8, 1951, Drews published an article in the Janesville Daily Gazette that offered readers a glimpse into Wisconsin’s early aviation history and noted that she, Guell, and Lester Maitland were collecting materials for a future book on the subject. That collaboration planted a seed that would take more than 30 years to fully bloom.
Drews closed her article with words that today seem prophetic: “The efforts of the intrepid men and women who risked criticism by hitching their interest to aviation’s new star... have done much to establish Wisconsin in aviation’s hall of fame.”
By the early 1980s, Guell saw that the generation who built Wisconsin’s airports, flew its first routes, and maintained its earliest aircraft was fading. Their stories still lived—but mostly in hangars, photo albums, and fading memories. He feared that once they were gone, their legacy would vanish too.
What began as informal conversations around kitchen tables grew into a mission. Wisconsin needed an organized effort to preserve its aviation heritage. In 1985, Guell and a small group of like-minded friends founded the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame. Its purpose reflected everything he had stood for: celebrating the people who built aviation in Wisconsin, preserving their stories, and inspiring the next generation.
Carl brought to WAHF the same qualities shaped by service and refined through education—steady leadership, humility, and an unshakable belief that history only lives when it’s shared. After his passing in 2001, WAHF established a scholarship in his name, extending his lifelong commitment to helping young people discover aviation.
Every induction, exhibit, and educational program still echoes his original premise: aviation is not just machinery and milestones. It is people—pilots, mechanics, educators, dreamers—and the choices they make that shape what happens next. The Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame grew from that simple truth and continues to stand on the foundation Carl Guell built.
