USAFA Class Histories

Col Taylor was born on August 25, 1941, in Sharon, Pennsylvania, to Alfred Lee and Elizabeth C. Taylor. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1963, and did graduate work at Georgetown and Auburn Universities. He married JoEllen Cardall in the Los Angeles Temple in 1964, and spent 24 years in the Air Force as a pilot and educator. He was an instructor in his beloved T-38, flew the F-100 in combat in Vietnam, and was a B-52 aircraft commander. He retired as a full colonel in 1987, when he commenced his second career teaching aviation at Westminster College, from which he reluctantly retired in May 2007.

Following contributed by a close personal friend and fellow graduate:

Early in the morning on June 7. 2007. Daniel J Taylor quietly finished his mortal responsibilities on this earth. His last words were “I’m OK". As with everything else he said and did.  Those words reflect his positive attitude and commitment to successfully complete every project he started.   A legendary educator within the Air Force and then later at Westminster College in Salt lake City as director of the aeronautics program for 20 years. His contributions to aviation will be felt for generations as his students continue to fill the seats of commercial airplanes and military aircraft. It was almost solely because of Dan's contacts and his personality that a wealthy benefactor stepped forward and provided underwriting of an ambitious program upgrade at the College in which new simulators and flying aircraft now make it one of the premier pilot programs in the nation.

Just two months ago Dan formally retired from teaching after guiding the college to hire one of the few men at another school who had the vision and the credentials to carry on successfully.  Dan has left his legacy 

Dan was known for his acumen regarding almost any device you could purchase and he was the first I would go to before buying a digital camera, a security system, or a new automobile.  He was one of the first customers in the state of Utah to purchase an Insight hybrid and that car was faithfully used in his daily commute to confirm his passion of preserving our heritage for future generations.  It still gets the mileage he anticipated. 

Dans steady excellence was demonstrated early in his cadet years as he led the 17th Squadron to a wing championship in water polo and was undefeated in two freestyle events with a wing record time that lasted for years.  Selected to be one of the early participants in the Georgetown graduate program, he then proceeded on to flight training and assignment to Vietnam flying 100 fighters.  After his aircraft was phased out of that theater, Dan became a briefing officer and aide for Vice Commander Seventh Air Force and was relied upon by the leadership for his honesty and integrity despite the efforts of some who would rather have had him leave out the bad news. 

His broad experience led him to serve in faculty positions at Squadron Officer School and then become aircraft commander tying B-52s.  Dan's promotion to full colonel came as a staff officer in the Pentagon where he ushered in many of the many upgrades to Air War College simulation capabilities. 

Daniel had recently undergone his ninth surgery for sarcoma cancer, a result of exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam,  which was first discovered in 1984 while he was working at the Pentagon.  He endured the pain of each operation and emerged as a vigorous fighter again and again: however, the most recent operation revealed that this time the extent of the cancer exceeded the abilities of surgeons to remove it. 

He is survived by his wife, JoElIen, who lives in Provo, Utah: by his son John, who is a career diplomat for the state department; and his daughter Tracy, living with her family in Dayton Ohio.  I couldn’t begin to name the thousands of others who considered him a close friend.   (Harold Rust. Squadron 19. Class of 1965) 

(Words in Italics added to original document.)