The Founder
Frederick Templeton Jamieson (1928-2009)
Fred was born in Oakland California. He was an immensely proud Scotsman, having traced his lineage back to Scottish ship-builders who sailed to New Zealand and then on to San Francisco in the Gold Rush of 1849. His father owned a car dealership but like many in the 1930’s, he lost everything in the Great Depression. As a young man of 16, Fred was passioned about building cars and drag racing.
US Navy
As of result of his racing skills, he was recruited by the US Navy for a Naval Aviation program in Pensacola, Florida as part of the “Brown Shoes” project. Neil Armstrong was one class ahead of Fred and they met up years later at the annual reunions. Fred recalled spirited debates with Neil about how to land on the moon. As a helicopter test pilot, he had more than a few ideas.
Fred’s Naval training took him into many adventures - he flew patrol in a bucket of bolts plane between Mainland China and Taiwan (then called Formosa); moving on into helicopter training, aircraft carrier training, Naval intelligence and engineering.
He left the Navy after 4 years and found more adventures: He crop dusted farms in California, was a helicopter test pilot for helicopter pioneer, Stanley Hiller, was a cattle rancher, and flew as navigator for TWA – all by the time he was 35. His pilot’s license showed qualification for every kind of flight except fighter jets.
Passionate Modeler
From the time he was a small boy, Fred loved to build and fly models. Throughout his life, Fred was an active member of model airplane clubs and had quite a reputation as a racer. He belonged to model airplane clubs for most of his life, and was instrumental in setting up his local club in Santa Rosa as well as a local model airplane show.
Fred was one of those people who simply could not slow down. He never stopped puttering with rebuilding cars, planes and copters. One of his favorite sayings was “I am in the business of making other people successful”. This is truly how he defined himself.