Joe Kline was born in Washington DC in 1949 and has lived in California since 1961.  His artistic specialty for the past 35 years has been painting military aircraft in a technically and historically correct context.  His paintings exhibit a highly realistic style and have been done for such notable aviators as General  Jimmy Doolittle, Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and are included in the private collections of thousands of former military aviators, air crewmen and veterans from WWII to the present War on Terror.

He traces his interest in aviation to his father, who was a B-25 bombardier with the 340th Bomb Group in the Mediterranean Theatre during WWII, and his own experiences as a Huey helicopter crew chief with the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War.

Following his military service, he worked as a mechanical engineer for McCormick & Co for 27 years and has been the Public Information Officer for the City of Gilroy, California for the past 8 years. He has a BS Degree in Industrial Design. 

He is an Artist Member of the American Society of Aviation Artists, the Vietnam Helicopter Crew Members Association, the 101st Airborne Division Association, Heli-Vets, The Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network and is the founder of the Kingsmen Reunion Association.  He is also an Associate member of the 57th Bomb Wing Association and is an honorary member of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Association and the 7/17 Cavalry Association.

He and his wife Donna have three daughters and one grandson and live in Gilroy, California.

Aviation has always been very important in the life of Paul Fretts.  From his early life in Pennsylvania through the present day, aviation has had a great impact on both Paul’s life and art. Paul’s father, a fighter pilot in World War II, and his mother, an accomplished artist in her own right, supplied an additional influence on the direction his life would take.

Enlisting in the Army in 1965, at age eighteen, Paul graduated as a Warrant Officer from U. S. Army flight training.  He then went on to serve two tours of duty in Viet Nam accumulating a total of 1600 hours of combat flight time flying UH-1D’s with the 162nd AHC, and on a subsequent tour with the 205th ASHC flying CH-47A’s.  He was also the recipient of the Purple Heart, Bronze Star for Valor, and Air Medal with 33 oak leaf clusters. 

Stateside assignments included Fort Meade, MD with the 6th ACR, Fort Knox, KY, and an assignment as a flight instructor in the CH-47 Chinook at the U. S. Army Aviation Center, Fort Rucker, Alabama.  Leaving the Army in 1975, Paul worked for several years as a commercial artist.  He continued his aviation career in the United States Army Reserve, retiring in 1996, having flown the UH-1H Huey and the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

 Since 1978, Paul’s full-time job has been that of a civilian flight instructor at the U. S. Army Aviation Center flying both the UH-1H and the TH-67 Creek.  This has afforded him the opportunity to pursue his artistic interests by creating a highly detailed, technically accurate series of pen and ink prints of helicopters and airplanes.  Although Paul’s primary interest has been the aircraft of Army Aviation, in the future this ever-expanding collection will include aircraft of all the military services.

Paul currently resides in Dothan, AL with his wife Zilpha.