Capt. Gary A. Dahlke serves as Aerospace Education Officer for Group 4, and Deputy Director of AE for Florida Wing. Capt. Dahlke joined Civil Air Patrol in October 2002, primarily as a result of having been asked to give a guest presentation to CAP cadets at Patrick AFB as part of the Air Force Space Command Familiarization Course. The experience left such an impression on him that he was motivated to join CAP.

Capt. Dahlke is an Air Force veteran, having served nearly eight years on active duty in the fields of Ballistic Missile Maintenance and Command and Control. He also has over four years of active participation in the Air Force Reserve.

Capt. Dahlke’s entire civilian career has been spent in the aerospace industry. Upon receiving his bachelor’s degree, he was hired by Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin) Astronautics Group of Denver, Colorado to perform payload integration activities for the Titan IV launch vehicle. In 1992 he relocated to Brevard County, Florida and has worked on the Space Shuttle program ever since. His past assignments have included Solid Rocket Booster Refurbishment Engineering and Flight Crew Training. His current assignment is Spacecraft Systems Engineer on Orbiter Vehicle 105 (Endeavour). 

He is an amateur astronomer, having completed 11 undergraduate credits hours of general astronomy and is a member of the Kennedy Space Center Amateur Astronomers. Capt. Dahlke also builds and flies large scale rockets in his spare time.