Foil: 1 Panel: 3 Column: 1 Line: 48

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mr. F. G. Kohler

Valerie Bonzer started in War Surplus in 1947, long before there was a name "Warbirds" to identify this genre. Her's is a classic story of the "American Dream" not needing attachment to aviation, but deeply attached. She had come from Depression era Pittsburgh and dirt-poverty to California. Being young and beautiful with a sense of fun - but driving ambition -- she hung out at Mocambos, Ciros, JoCoCo Room, and the Sunset Strip scene where she did two unusual things:
- One. She married Fred W. Kohler, a handsome, personable actor, son of a famous actor and hatched me, divorced him.
- Two. She met Joseph Claus Collins (JoCoCo Room) who went from studying for the Priesthood and Law at Saint Thomas, Saint Marys and Hastings — to selling used cars, building a finance agency which developed into Household Finance, and just happened to have made aircraft parts during the war and become a War Assets Agent. She saw that he could buy trash plane parts and sell them at a gigantic profit. Cool! Miss. Bonzer became an excellent detective at finding such parts all over the country and the only woman in that odd field who created her own aircraft war surplus business.

Starting with electrical parts, switches, and bulbs, her business developed into instruments and auto-pilot. She never made or even overhauled the parts. She found them squirreled away, all over the country, bought them, held them for a bit and resold them. A typical bid would list 5000 lbs. miscellaneous instruments. Literally heaps of instruments for pennies each - many of them a liability that would cost money to haul to the trash - and some would go to Cessna, Piper, Mooney, Flying Tiger Airlines. Some went to other dealers or shops first who had overhaul facilities - or the buyer in their pocket. It was a tough industry. Most dealers died young of stress or went broke.

When driving cross-country, she was intimidated by strangers following her, harassed by bad cops, and befriended by unlikely folk from gas station attendants to heads of industry -- the Chairman of US Steel, for one. She would take her son on these trips when on vacation, stopping at cultural and playful spots. She learned the history and geography of the land by being there, and she passed that knowledge along.

When they, or she alone, arrived at a military base to inspect a bid. It was her hands, and later her son's who moved the tons of instruments, cans, and boxes, to discover if there was gold - well actually, instruments which could bring in the gold. Some characters stole parts during the inspections, but that was not her style. She did, however, find the good bits, and dig a hole in the center of the largest pile of junk parts to hide the good material.

Her instruments were in the first Lear Jet. When Mooney ran out of money to pay for instruments, she took a plane in trade. She found Sperry auto-pilots in retired airliners, and sold them back to Sperry to be re-manufactured for the C-130. She has owned over 30 Mustangs, 100s of Warbirds, from the TBMs that George Bush flew, to the Mars Flying Boat and the Constitution aircraft.

Valerie was 94 in 2012 and, not willing to deal with growing government regulations, she sold 25,000 instruments to another dealer. She has dealt with a variety of parts, principally for the Warbird owners and operators. She has owned a P-51 Mustang and oversaw the operation of a restoration group which operates the Mustang and an AT-6, has given flight scholarships to youth, and created electronic manuals for these classic Warbirds.