1. Donnie L Cochran is a former United States Navy naval aviator and was the first African-American aviator to be selected to the Flight Demonstration Squadron Blue Angels in 1986.
16 Facts About Donnie Cochran
1. 2.
Donnie Cochran is a 2022 inductee to the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame.
3.
Donnie L Cochran was born July 6,1954, on a farm near Pelham, Georgia.
4.
Donnie Cochran was assigned to fly the RF-8G Crusader due to his excellent performance during carrier qualification as a student pilot.
5.
Shortly after arriving at VF-124 in 1985, Captain Donnie Cochran applied for and was selected as a Blue Angels pilot.
6.
Donnie Cochran was the first African American pilot to fly with the Blue Angels and flew for three seasons.
7.
In 1986, Captain Donnie Cochran flew the left wingman position flying the number 3 jet in the A-4F Skyhawk.
8.
For Captain Donnie Cochran, it meant another year flying the number 3 jet in 1987 and a normal rotation to the number 4 jet as slot pilot in 1988.
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Captain Donnie Cochran made one deployment on board the USS Ranger.
10.
Captain Donnie Cochran flew over 24 missions and earned an Air Medal.
11.
In November 1994, Donnie Cochran assumed command as the first African American commanding officer and flight leader of the Blue Angels at a ceremony at National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida.
12.
Donnie Cochran believes his lessons learned on leadership, team dynamics and individual performance are vital to anyone in a leadership role or a member of a high-performance team:.
13.
Captain Donnie Cochran was directly responsible for developing and grooming over 100 future naval officers for the navy and United States Marine Corps.
14.
Captain Donnie Cochran retired from the US Navy with over 24 years of leadership and aviation expertise.
15.
Donnie Cochran earned a civil engineering degree from Savannah State College, now known as Savannah State University, Savannah, Georgia, in 1976, where he was a member of the NROTC program.
16.
Donnie Cochran is a graduate of the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama, and earned a master's degree in human resource management from Troy State University.