“We love building things, and we especially love flying things,” he said.
As the club’s senior adviser, he coordinates its volunteer efforts — sometimes three or four events each week. Often those outreach events involve youth, working with schools, scouts and others.
He hopes the exposure will inspire more of them to pursue engineering. Several of those kids have already grown up to do so.
“We want to make sure they have a good experience at a young age,” said Boadway, 63, of Dayton’s Springfield neighborhood.
Boadway himself was about 10 years old in Capac, Michigan when his best friend introduced him to model rockets, and they started a club.
“We had a blast with it, pun intended,” he said.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
It was in Michigan where he and his daughter began to compete at the national level, and where he helped coordinate activities, including becoming the contest director of an annual national rocketry meet in 2007.
It was also in Michigan that he started eRockets in 2009, filling and shipping orders out of his home, intending for it to eventually become a retirement business. But when he moved to Dayton for a job, he brought eRockets with him. Sales grew, and it eventually became a full-time job.
The business now has nine employees and is located in a warehouse at 1510 Springfield St., in the Springfield neighborhood. That allows space for the store, classroom and shipping. About 98 percent of eRockets’ sales are online at https://www.erockets.biz, Boadway said.
The business also manufactures about 60 model rocket kits, marketed under the name of Semroc, which eRockets acquired about eight years ago.
The store hosts a weekly open house for visitors to build together, and the classroom welcomes a variety of groups. Boadway also is mentoring four Xenia High School students working on their capstone project.
Through the Wright State Rocketeers, which Boadway says is the most active rocket club in the country, he also helps organize the National Museum of the United States Air Force’s annual Rocket Day every fall. Over the course of five hours this year, the volunteers helped 705 kids build rockets and 621 fly them.
“That means every 30 seconds, something was leaving the ground,” he said.
For the vast majority, that was their first rocket. The club has assisted more than 900 first-time flyers so far this year, he said.
Parents say their children open up around model rockets, Boadway said, and the hobby encourages using their hands.
“Parents love that, and the kids do, too,” he said.
Matthew Johnson met Boadway through their shared interest two decades ago and they became friends. He also worked at eRockets for several years.
Model rocketry epitomizes both a capacity for wonder and a hope for the future, he said. Boadway’s outreach builds a base for the hobby while underlining the importance of fields like math and physics. Boadway’s “heart and soul beats for rocketry,” said Johnson, of the Five Oaks neighborhood.
“He’s a powerhouse in the hobby,” Johnson said.
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