Alan graduated in 1980 from Wisconsin's Ripon College with degrees in physics and economics. While a senior there in 1979, he began developing sketches of an airplane that would become the Cirrus VK-30, and worked for more than three years in the Ripon admissions office while Dale finished college. Dale graduated in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point with degrees in business administration and economics. He once said that his fall-back plan was to become a banker had their early career in aviation never succeeded.
