President – John Dickson
John was born in Southern California and began his career with Flying Tigers as a pilot on July 31, 1978. Becoming a commercial pilot was a dream he possessed since his first flight lesson at age 14. While pumping gas at Torrance Airport, he was able to solo at age 16 and gain his Private Pilot License at age 17. He built his flight hours as a young commercial pilot at Hawthorne Airport and LAX and attended CSULB at night, where he earned a Business Administration degree.
His boyhood dream was finally realized at age 23 when he was hired by FTL and began training as a new Second Officer on the DC-8-63. Quickly surpassing his passion for flying was the sudden exuberance found in being part of something so dynamic – the largest air cargo airline in the world at the time. The Tiger Spirit was instilled in him and has only grown stronger as time has passed. While at Flying Tigers he flew on the DC8, B747, and B727.
After the merger with Federal Express he checked out as Captain on the B727 and DC10, and retired in 2016 after a 38-year career as an MD11 Captain.
Vice President – Helena Burke
Helena’s father arrived in New York in 1956 on a Flying Tigers DC4 passenger flight transporting refugees from Eastern Europe to America; 24 years later, Helena was employed at the Flying Tiger Line at World Headquarters at LAX and continued her career in Flight Operations and Aircraft Maintenance through the next 44 years and retired from FedEx in 2024.
Helena earned two degrees in Aviation and is somewhat of perpetual student. This led to a Board position at the Flying Tigers Club (where she still serves) and writes quarterly newsletters, often about Flying Tiger Line accomplishments. This passion about the history of The Flying Tiger Line, together with the Board of Directors, was part of the impetus that founded the Flying Tiger Line Historical Society.
Helena was born and raised in Los Angeles with Croatian roots and loves to travel to Croatia any chance she gets to visit with family.
Secretary – Guy Van Herbruggen
Born in January 1963 in Brussels, Belgium, Guy Van Herbruggen began a lifelong love of aviation when, at the age of six, he flew on a Sabena SE-210 Caravelle from Brussels to Tunis with his parents. Guy started to fly gliders at the age of fourteen and earned his FAA Professional Pilot IFR Multi-engine license in 1990, followed by a flight engineer certificate with a 727 type rating. Today, Guy is a Planning & Engineering Manager at FedEx Express where he has worked since 1991. He resides in Ottignies, Belgium, with his wife France and their twin children, where he has restored the former Sabena Boeing 707 flight simulator built by Curtiss-Wright in 1959. In 2012, he salvaged the cockpit of the first DC-10-30CF operated in Europe (by Sabena), and in 2014 was the project initiator and manager bringing the 1968 Flying Tigers DC-8-63 simulator to the Mons Saint-Ghislain airfield in Belgium. Guy has been an honorary member of the Flying Tiger Line Pilots Association and the Flying Tigers Club since 2018. He loves to travel and has accumulated close to 1,900 flights in his passenger logbook.
Guy Van Herbruggen is the author of eight books including The Story Of The MD-11, Corsair 747, For Your Safety, and five works on the Flying Tiger Line.
Treasurer – Gary Molinari
In 1971 after graduation from College in upstate New York, Gary headed West. After a very boring year as an Internal Auditor with a major insurance company he answered an ad for Internal Auditor for Flying Tiger Line to include International travel (the hook). At the conclusion of the interview, he told the hiring manager that he was not going to leave the office until he offered him the position; after his initial shock he said he had more candidates to interview and would let him know.
A few days later Gary was hired (May 1972) and the fun began. He spent approximately five years in the finance department starting as an Internal Auditor and then Manager of Credit and Collections before transferring divisions to the Charter Department; that is when the serious fun began.
At the time of the FedEx merger, Gary was General Manager of Contract Programs with P&L responsibility for all commercial and military (cargo and passenger) charters, as well as aircraft leasing.
Asst. Secretary & Director – Marshall Meyers
Marshall grew up in Washington DC. His father, Norman, a DC lawyer, first met Bob Prescott in 1945 to discuss creating Flying Tigers and served as Tigers general counsel, an officer and director for approximately 20 years.
As a child in 1947, Marshall accompanied three race horses on a Flying Tiger C-54 from La Guardia to Shannon and returned with 48 Greek immigrants from Athens. The crew had to take him sightseeing in London, Paris, Rome and Athens. Not wanting to leave an 8-year old alone in the hotel, he accompanied the crew to his first Follies! See news clipping
After law school, he joined his father’s law firm representing Flying Tigers until the late 1960s when he ventured into representing a variety of airlines, shippers and others involving cutting edge issues involving aviation, animal law, endangered and invasive species, climate change, international treaties involving wildlife (non-human types) and bio-ethics. Since the mid-1970s he has served as an advisor on the International Air Transport Association’s Live Animals and Perishables Board. His eclectic practice has taken him to more than 120 countries.
He is in the process of sorting through his law firm’s historical files involving Tigers from its incorporation in 1945 through its first 25 years to add to the FTLHS archives.
Director – John Burke
John, having been raised in an airline family, always knew he wanted to follow in those footsteps. After graduating from the University of Miami with a degree in Business Administration, John’s next goal in life was to find that special airline. He had the opportunity to join the Flying Tigers at JFK in 1978 and begin his 41-career until retirement from FedEx in 2019.
Flying Tigers provided John with the opportunity to enjoy working in several different departments (Ramp, Operations Control, Charters and AOG) and locations (JFK, BWI, LAX and MEM) within the company during his tenure. Over the course of the years John was fortunate enough to meet and learn from some very experienced co-workers.