Ron Martelet graduated from the Art Center College of Design in 1959 with a degree in Industrial Design. He went to work for Sears Roebuck and Company and retired after thirty years of service in 1989. While at Sears he worked on over 100 different products. The variety of products to design is what kept him at Sears. The smallest of these products were Christmas tree light reflectors and the largest was a seventeen- foot, inboard/outboard cabin cruiser. He holds several design patents, mostly for sewing machine designs. Ron never thought of his job as work and couldn’t believe he could get paid for doing something that gave him so much pleasure. His vocation was design but his avocation was aviation. His life long hobby is building model airplanes. One of his models is on display in the museum of the Academy of Model Aeronautics. He also builds full size home-built (Experimental ) aircraft and is presently flying two of them. The holder of both power-plane and glider ratings, he taught soaring for many years. Ron also love to ski, sail and write articles for aviation publications.