Dale Johnson was born in 1938 and raised in Scappoose, Oregon, on his family’s farm, where turkeys and cattle were part of everyday life. He participated in FFA and showed cattle, and as a boy he and his brother searched for arrowheads along Willamette Slough. He grew up attending the Congregational Church in Scappoose, beginning a lifelong commitment to Christian faith and service.
A second-generation Oregon State University student, Dale studied agriculture and animal husbandry, fully expecting to return to the family farm. Instead, college gave him two things that would shape the rest of his life: he met and married Jean, the love of his life and his wife of 66 years, and Air Force ROTC led him into aviation. He went to pilot training in Texas and became a C-124 Globemaster II pilot. Daughter Tammi was born during their time in Texas, and son Stephen was born while Dale was stationed in Hawaii, from which he flew missions in and out of Vietnam. Hawaii remained a special place to Dale and Jean, and they returned many times over the years.
After their years away, Dale and Jean returned to Oregon in the early 1970s, settling again in Scappoose, where they remained until moving to Salem in 1985. Aviation remained a thread throughout Dale’s working life. He flew for Canadian Pacific and Pan Am, flew charter aircraft, sold business aircraft for Beechcraft, and built a career around avionics and emerging navigation technology. At Oregon-based II Morrow, Dale was involved with Loran aviation-navigation technology during the years leading to the company’s acquisition by UPS in 1986. He was also active in the Wild Goose Association, the professional organization devoted to Loran navigation, eventually serving as its president. Even after leaving UPS, Dale remained interested in new aviation ventures, developing technologies and the question of what might come next.
That curiosity was simply part of Dale. He wasn’t someone who needed the newest gadget, but he wanted to understand what was developing and how it worked. And he did love a GPS. On one family drive across I-70 in Kansas—a road on which getting lost takes some effort—Dale simultaneously compared the Honda Odyssey’s navigation system, his Garmin and Google Maps. He wasn’t lost. He was checking the technology.
Dale was a maker and a doer. He loved woodworking and beautiful wood, and if Jean needed a shelf or a shoe rack, he was likely to disappear into his shop and make one. He built lovely tables and was just as happy lending his hands to someone else’s project, including helping his friend Dan restore a boat. There was nearly always something to build, fix, investigate or improve.
He loved sailing, camping and the outdoors—particularly the combination of trees and water that always felt like home to an Oregonian. His love of flight never left him either, and he continued to follow new aircraft and developments in aviation throughout his life.
Dale’s Christian faith was a constant. He and Jean served as youth leaders while living in Canada, and after returning to Scappoose, Dale became active again in the Congregational Church where he had grown up, serving in a variety of roles, including as an elder and in missions. After their move to Salem, he continued to serve his church as an usher and faithfully joined an early Saturday morning prayer group at Great Harvest. Church was not simply somewhere Dale went; faith, service and Christian community were woven throughout his life.
In 2020, after Dale was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), he and Jean moved from Oregon to Colorado to be closer to family. The disease gradually took away many of the abilities that had come naturally to a man who had spent his life in motion, but Dale continued to travel, get outdoors and take an interest in the world around him for as long as he could. He enjoyed walks through the neighborhood and the activity of their busy cul-de-sac. For his 88th birthday, he rode the Eagle Bahn Gondola up Vail Mountain to Eagle’s Nest.
PSP eventually limited what Dale could do, but it did not define the life he had lived. He was a pilot and sailor, a woodworker and tinkerer, a man of faith, a husband, father and grandfather, and a lifelong student of whatever interesting thing happened to be coming over the horizon. He loved his family, liked having something useful to do, and remained interested in the world around him.
Dale is survived by Jean, his wife of 66 years; their children: Tammi Jean Cole and her husband, David; and Stephen Johnson and his wife, Annette; their six grandchildren: Wyatt Cole and his wife, Marissa; Trevor Cole; Stephen Johnson and his wife, Ezri; Kaiti Johnson; Annaliesa McBride and her husband, Mark; and Michaela Johnson; and four great-grandchildren: Holly, Phineas, Eden and Ronan. He is also survived by his brother, Bruce Johnson and his wife, Joan; and by his nephews and nieces: Gregory, Mark, Doug, Lorna and Trudy.
He was preceded in death by his brother, Wallace Johnson.