Aerlex President Stephen Hofer Joins Anderson, Indiana, Hall of Fame
Aerlex Law Group President and Founder Stephen Hofer, a native Hoosier born and raised in Anderson, Indiana, was recently inducted as a member of the Anderson Community Schools (ACS) Hall of Fame.
The Anderson Education Foundation (AEF), the nonprofit organization that manages the Hall of Fame, feted Hofer and 10 other ASC graduates as “models of educational attainment, excellence and leadership in our community and beyond” during two days of events held August 20-21, concluding with a banquet and a ceremony at which a lighted Wall of Fame was unveiled outside the auditorium at Anderson High School. Hofer also was invited to speak to several honors classes at the high school and was joined at the Hall of Fame celebrations by his wife, Tammy Barr.
Anderson is a central Indiana city of 55,000 people, located 40 miles northeast of Indianapolis. According to the AEF, the Hall of Fame was established in 2010 to “define, highlight, honor and promote ACS alumni who embody the phrase ‘a successful life'” and with the induction of the Class of 2021, Hofer joins a group of 65 distinguished ACS graduates who have been recognized for a lifetime of achievement, including Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher and banking executive Carl Erskine, former administrator of the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) John Pistole, United States Navy Rear Admiral Scott Craig, Congressional Medal of Honor winner Melvin Biddle, former Honeywell Aerospace president Rob Gillette, Bloomberg managing editor Michael Tackett, Emmy Award winning producer Greg Bell, entrepreneur Gary Hoover, founder of the Bookstop superstore bookstore chain, and former professional basketball players Ray Tolbert, Bobby Wilkerson, Rod Freeman and Johnny Wilson.
Stephen Hofer attended Madison Heights High School in Anderson, where he was elected student body president, Indiana State Student Council President and was chosen as America’s Most Outstanding Teenage Boy in 1968. After working for eight years as a journalist, including stints as managing editor of the Bloomington, Ind. Daily Herald-Telephone and as a writer and editor at the Miami (Fla.) Herald, Hofer switched careers and went into law. He attended Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, where he won the school’s prestigious Lowden-Wigmore Award for outstanding legal writing, then spent four years at the nationally known Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. After taking a leave of absence to work for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, he became vice president and general counsel of American Golf Corporation, then began practicing aviation law in 1992. Hofer founded the Aerlex Law Group in 2005, which has been recognized by London-based Chambers & Partners as one of the top dozen aviation law firms in the world six years in a row. Hofer also has been selected by Thomson Reuters as a Southern California Super Lawyer for 13 consecutive years.
The biographical sketch of Stephen Hofer that appeared in the Anderson Community Schools Hall of Fame induction ceremony program and memento booklet
