Kenneth H. Dahlberg

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Dahlberg grew up on a farm near the village of Wilson, Wisconsin and attended classes in a one-room school for 11 years. During his senior year, he moved back to Saint Paul to live with an aunt in order to graduate from an accredited high school (Harding High School). After graduation in 1935, he worked in the hotel business, starting as a dishwasher and working his way up to food and beverage manager for a hotel chain.

Dahlberg was drafted into the United States Army in 1941. He eventually became an aviation cadet in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), where one of his instructors was future Senator Barry Goldwater.

He received numerous awards and decorations, including the Distinguished Service Cross for leading a flight of 16 P-47 Thunderbolts (354th) against an attack of 70 German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters on December 19, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. Dahlberg accounted for four enemy planes that day, but was himself shot down. He was rescued by Martin Dardis and four other American soldiers. Many years after the war, both Dardis and Dahlberg became key figures in the Watergate scandal.

On February 14, 1945, Dahlberg was downed for the third and final time, near Bitburg, and became a prisoner of war for the final three months of the war.

Dahlberg went to work for Telex, a company that made hearing aids. In 1948, he founded Dahlberg Electronics, a subsidiary of which is the Miracle-Ear hearing aids manufacturer. By 1959, Miracle-Ear had evolved into a subsidiary of Dahlberg, Inc., with $100 million in annual revenue. A national advertising campaign that Dahlberg, Inc. ran from 1988 until mid-1993 was subject to charges of false advertising by the Federal Trade Commission, which were settled in 1995 when the company agreed to pay a $2.75 million civil penalty. In the summer of 1993, Dahlberg sold his company to Bausch & Lomb for $139 million.

In 1967, Dahlberg was notified by the Department of Defense that he had earned the Distinguished Service Cross in 1945, but it was not presented to him at that time because he was a prisoner of war. Dahlberg also earned the Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Purple Hearts, 16 Air Medals, and the French Croix de Guerre.

Dahlberg was the Midwest finance chairman for the Committee to Re-elect the President during President Richard M. Nixon's 1972 campaign. In 1968, he was the finance chairman for Clark MacGregor's unsuccessful Senate campaign in Minnesota. MacGregor was later appointed the head of the Committee to Re-elect the President in 1972, after former attorney general John Mitchell had resigned.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon appointed Dahlberg to the board of visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He also served as a trustee of Hamline University.

In 1995, Dahlberg started the venture capital firm Carefree Capital, whose investments include the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant chain. As of 2010, Dahlberg lived in Carefree, Arizona, and still piloted a Cessna Citation jet.

In 1996, Dahlberg was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame at the Norsk Høstfest in Minot, North Dakota. He was inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame in 2009.

In July 2007, he was featured in the aviation series Dogfights on The History Channel, in the final segment of the episode on the P-47 Thunderbolt.

Dahlberg died on October 4, 2011, at his Deephaven, Minnesota home. He was survived by his wife of 64 years, Betty Jayne (née Segerstrom), two daughters, and a son.

In 2012, the Kenneth H. Dahlberg Memorial to Service was built and constructed at Hamline University, where Dahlberg served as a life trustee and played an integral part in its construction.