John W. Greene was a pioneering aviator, airplane mechanic, and teacher who is credited more than any other person with the success and enduring legacy of Columbia Air Center. Born in 1901, he studied mechanical engineering at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, earned his private pilot's license in June 1929, and by 1932 had become the second African American to receive a commercial pilot's license and the third to receive a transport pilot's license. He later earned an instructor's rating, airplane and engine mechanic's licenses, a third class radio license, and a ground school instructor's rating. Recruited to Washington, DC, in 1940 to start an aviation mechanics program at Phelps Vocational School, he formed the Cloud Club with several other pilots and became instrumental in organizing operations at Riverside Field, where he soon became manager. He directed the flying portion of Howard University's Civil Pilot Training Program there until the start of America's involvement in World War II. After the war, the airfield offered a complete program of flight training, and Greene also taught classes at Armstrong High School and formed the Columbia Squadron, the first black Civil Air Patrol squadron in the Washington area. Managing Columbia Air Center from 1941 to 1954, he helped make it one of the busiest airports in Prince George's County; by 1946 it had several large hangars, a maintenance shop, a classroom, and an office, along with equipment, instruments, and engines for instruction, and it continued to grow with charter flights, aircraft and fuel sales, a repair shop, and space for private pilots. Greene retired from the airport in 1954 but remained active in aviation until his death in 1989 at age 87.