Edgar L. Bolden
June 1, 1926 – March 4, 2007
Class 43-K-SE
Bolden was born June 1, 1921, in Arlington, VA. After graduating from Armstrong High School in Washington, D.C. He was accepted into the military after completing flight training in the U.S. Army Air Corps at Tuskegee Air Field in Tuskegee. He served in World War II flying several missions as a fighter pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen. During one of his missions, his plane was shot down over Linz, Austria, and was held as a POW at Stalag Luft I.
After leaving the Army Air Corps, he entered the Howard University College of Engineering, earned his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and taught at Howard University.
He worked at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, the Bureau of Standards in Washington D.C. and later at RCA in Princeton, New Jersey where he worked on communications satellite systems. In 1969, he moved to Washington D.C. where he eventually retired from the Federal Aviation Administration. In 1994, he moved from Washington D.C. to Portland Oregon.
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