Mike Schweiss, founder and owner of Schweiss Doors, will be inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame at a ceremony in April.
Schweiss, a private pilot, entrepreneur and inventor, designs the globally used lift-strap bi-fold doors and single-piece hydraulic hangar doors. These bi-fold doors employ nylon straps to replace outdated cable door systems that used cables, pulleys and deadweights. The company’s hydraulic doors require less headroom, are easy to install and boast the industry’s strongest hinges.
“This is truly an unexpected and humbling honor,” Schweiss says. “The great state of Minnesota is home to so many aviation pioneers and industry leaders. To be included among these folks means more to me than I can say. This is the kind of honor that makes all of us at Schweiss get to the office and work a little bit harder to make sure we’re building the most reliable bifold and hydraulic doors on the market.”
In addition to hangar doors, Schweiss has built doors for such businesses at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis; the Red Bull HQ; Yankee Stadium; the new Columbus, Ohio, soccer stadium; Cycle City in Hawaii; and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Shanghai. The largest is a 90-foot-wide and 60-foot-tall door for a NASA assembly building at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Other 2024 inductees are Curtis L. Brown, a U.S. Air Force pilot and NASA astronaut; Pat Magie III, a seaplane pilot, entrepreneur and author; Cheri Rohlfing, a Delta Air Lines Captain, adjunct professor at Minnesota State University; Paul Dye, flight director for 39 space shuttle missions; Stevan Petrich, commercial airline and floatplane pilot; and Max Haynes, accomplished aviation photographer and artist.
The 2024 inductees will be honored as the 36th hall of fame class at a banquet at the Mystic Lake Center in Prior Lake, Minn., April 20.
