Haagen Klaus

SCALE MODELING NEWS 7 REVIEW EDITOR, DETAIL & SCALE

Born and raised on the east end of Long Island, Haagen Klaus grew up around airplanes, minutes from Grumman Aircraft Corporation’s flight test center at Calverton, New York. Among his earliest memories are test pilots, F-14s, and building kits at the dining room table. He has been building scale models continuously since 1985, and for just as long, learning anything and everything about the history of aviation, aircraft engineering, and experimental flight test.

Loss of perfect eyesight in high school derailed his hopes of being a military aviator, but soon discovered archaeology in college. Haagen graduated with degrees in anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology from SUNY Plattsburgh (BA, 2000), Southern Illinois University (MA, 2003), and The Ohio State University (Ph.D., 2008). Since 2003, he has directed a multi-national, multi-decade bioarchaeological research project in the deserts of Peru. Haagen is a widely published professor at George Mason University just outside Washington, D.C., teaching and training students in human anatomy, bone biology, South American archaeology, and forensic anthropology.

Since 1997, Haagen has been an active member of the International Plastic Modeler’s Society. He was a co-founder of IPMS/Champlain Valley, serving as their first vice president and helped bring about the annual CAN-AM Con model contest series that continues today. Haagen has also worked in hobby retail on-and-off since 1997, establishing extensive background knowledge on kits, aftermarket products, manufacturing and modeling techniques, and tools..