1956 – Present
Dennis Dunlap of Hendersonville, North Carolina, is a prominent local businessman, general contractor, and aviation enthusiast best known as the founder and president of Dunlap Construction. He established the Hendersonville-based company in 1979, growing it from a sole proprietorship cabinet-making business into a highly recognized regional contractor handling residential, commercial, and medical renovations.
Beyond his construction career, he is a well-known figure in the local community as one of three co-founders of the Western North Carolina Air Museum in 1983 and was President from 1995 to 1996. An avid pilot, Dunlap famously owned and flew a vintage 1943 open-cockpit Stearman biplane.
In June 2016, Dunlap and his co-pilot Ken Stubbs (and fellow co-founder of WNCAM) made headlines by flying his vintage biplane on a coast-to-coast transcontinental journey from the coast of SouthCarolina all the way to Carlsbad, California.