Dan Hagedorn was appointed Senior Curator and Director of Collections for The Museum of Flight at historic Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington, effective February 7, 2008.

On May 13, 2016, he retired from The Museum of Flight and was, at the annual Trustee’s Meeting, unanimously appointed Curator Emeritus for the museum, an honor bestowed only once previously in the 50-year history of the institution.

Prior to coming to The Museum of Flight, Hagedorn served as both Research Team Leader and Adjunct Curator for Latin American Aviation at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, during the preceding 19 years. He came to that position following a 25-year career in the United States Armed Forces. During his military career, he served several tours in Latin America and elsewhere and, at one time or another, has visited all but one of the traditional Latin American nations.

He is the author of 32 books dealing with various aspects of aviation history, with an emphasis on the aviation history of Latin America. His books have been published in five languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Czech. He has also authored more than 150 journal articles for such widely read periodicals as AIR International, AIR Enthusiast, Skyways, Revista Aérea, Wings, Avions, Força Aérea, WW1 Aero, The Aviation Historian, FlyPast and the Journal of the American Aviation Historical Society, to name just a few. He was honored with The Willis Nye Award by the American Aviation Historical Society for his history of U.S. Army aviation in defense of the Panama Canal Zone, and concurrently, life membership No.100 in that Society. In October 2010, he was awarded the “AAHS Trophy” by Air-Britain, The International Society of Aviation Historians, for his career contributions to that organization, and is thus the only historian to ever receive both of these U.S. and international awards. He was principal script writer on the revised Enola Gay exhibition which enjoyed the greatest attendance and approval rating of any exhibition ever mounted at the National Air and Space Museum to that time, and which followed the cancelled – and highly controversial – “Last Act” exhibition surrounding the famous aircraft.

In March 1996, Hagedorn was named an Unsung Hero of the Smithsonian Institution, in connection with the 150th Anniversary of the Institution, an honor emanating from nomination by over 5,000 staff members of the Institution, and he was one of only two NASM staff members so honored at the time.

He was Curator for a subject-specific exhibition entitled ¡ARRIBA! The History of Flight in Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean which opened at the National Air and Space Museum in September 1998. This was the first such exhibition devoted exclusively to Latin American aviation at the Smithsonian.

He was the National Air and Space Museum coordinator and narrator of a portion of a 20-minute educational film produced under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Aviation Administration in 1999 entitled Building on the Legacy: Nuestra Herencia. The film had its genesis in a Hispanic Heritage Month presentation given by Hagedorn at FAA headquarters the year before. It has since been widely distributed to elementary and high schools in the southwestern United States, especially.

In 1993, Hagedorn was named by Revista Aérea magazine as overall Coordinator for its annual “Distinguished Helicopter Unit Citation Award” Program, presented until 2003 annually to a Latin American military or naval helicopter unit for outstanding humanitarian or flight accomplishment.

He was appointed as an Associate Editor of Air & Space Smithsonian magazine, the world’s most widely read aviation journal, on April 7, 2000, and the Editor in Chief of that publication, in recognition of his services, has elected to sustain him in that role after leaving the National Air and Space Museum, indefinitely. He remained on the masthead in that capacity until the publication was, sadly, terminated. On August 28, 2000, he was nominated to the Board of Directors of WW1 Aero and Skyways – the Journal of the Early Aeroplane and The Journal of the Airplane 1920-1940 respectively.

A private but highly prized honor came to Hagedorn in April 1998 when the East Muskingum Schools, The John Glenn High School, New Concord, Ohio, elected him to their Distinguished Alumnus Hall of Fame.

In October 2006, in conjunction with his services dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the first flight of aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont – the second person to achieve sustained, heavier-than-air, powered flight - he was decorated with the Orden Merito Santos-Dumont by the Ambassador to the United States of Brazil for “…services to aviation history.” Amanda Wright, the Grand Niece of the Wright Brothers, was honored at the same investiture on behalf of the brothers.

In July 2012, he was nominated to a panel of seven scholars and historians to serve as a member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame Nominations Screening Committee, chaired at the time by the late COL Walt Boyne, former Director of the National Air and Space Museum. He has served on that body annually ever since.

Since being appointed Curator and Director of Collections at The Museum of Flight, the largest independent air and space museum in the world, and a Smithsonian Affiliate, Hagedorn has appeared in five segments of the nationally televised Travel Channel feature Mysteries at the Museum and has thus been so featured more often than any other narrator in the history of the series. During his tenure at The Museum of Flight, he facilitate the donation of 15 air and space craft to the permanent collection, including the number three Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

He is a graduate of Villa Maria College (Magna Cum Laude), the State University of New York (Regent’s designee and Cum Laude) and the United States Army Command and General Staff College, as well as the Modern Archives Institute, National Archives. He started taking flying lessons at 14, and soloed on his 16th birthday, before gaining a driver’s license. While in the Armed Forces, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal (three Oak Leaf Clusters) as well as numerous other decorations and foreign awards. He resides in Lake of the Woods, Virginia with his wife Kathleen and they have five adult children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

At his retirement from The Museum of Flight in 2016, he was gifted with ride into the sunset from Boeing Field in a North American AT-6A Texan piloted by airshow great Carter Teeters, the Texan series being his favorite aircraft – real airplanes, with propellers and round engines.