John Paul Riddle

John Paul Riddle (May 19, 1901 – April 6, 1989) was a pilot and an aviation enthusiast, most well known for co-founding what later became Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU).

Riddle was born on May 19, 1901 in Pikeville, Kentucky. He attended Pikeville College in his hometown and graduated in 1920. After college he married Adele Goeser and they had six children. He served in the US Army Air Service from 1920 to 1922. After serving in the military, he became a barnstormer. He last lived in Coral Gables, Florida. At 87 years old, Riddle came down with an illness and died a few days later, on April 6, 1989. Riddle's ashes were scattered over the Atlantic and he is remembered by a marker with his Royal Air Force cadets buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Arcadia, Florida.

On December 17, 1925, exactly 22 years after the Wright Brothers' first flight, Riddle and T. Higbee Embry formed the Embry-Riddle Company at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, Ohio. Riddle had met Embry two years prior, while Riddle was barnstorming in Ohio. He had landed at Polo Field, offered Embry a ride in his plane, and from then on they were good friends. Riddle was named general manager, and the two began to sell Waco Aircraft in Cincinnati. In spring of 1926, the Embry-Riddle Company opened the Embry-Riddle Flying School. The school grew rapidly in 1928 and 1929, until the Embry-Riddle Company (now the Embry-Riddle Aviation Corporation) was merged with the Aviation Corporation (AVCO) of Delaware. AVCO phased out the Embry-Riddle Flying School in the fall of 1930. Shortly after, AVCO became American Airways (the predecessor of American Airlines), and the Embry-Riddle Company was gone.

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