Stephen Hofer–Sagamore of the Wabash Honoree (part 2 of 2)
Indiana Governor Names Aerlex President Stephen Hofer as Sagamore of the Wabash Honoree
In the Spring 2026 edition of the Indiana University Alumni Magazine, a feature article was published under the headline, “Aviation attorney with deep IU roots receives Sagamore of the Wabash from governor” — and that reminded us that we had never published Part 2 of our story on Aerlex Law Group President Stephen Hofer receiving the most prestigious award a Governor of the State of Indiana can give to native Hoosiers.
The latest issue of the IU Alumni Magazine was also a keepsake for an entirely different reason. The cover of the magazine and an extensive article inside recognized the achievements of the 2025 Indiana University football team, a season in which the Hoosiers, under second-year head coach Curt Cignetti and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza, completed a perfect 16-0 campaign with a 27-21 victory over the University of Miami to win IU’s first-ever national championship, a game in Miami which Steve Hofer and his wife, Tammy Barr, attended.
This report includes a clipping of the feature about Stephen Hofer that appeared in the IU Alumni Magazine this spring — and also concludes the story about the Sagamore of the Wabash award. For those who are interested in reading Part 1, published on our Aerlex website in January 2025, here is a link to that story: https://aerlex.com/wabash.
[Part 2]
On Saturday morning, October 26, 2024, Indiana State Representative Kyle Pierce presented Steve with the Sagamore of the Wabash proclamation during a ceremony held at IU’s DeVault Alumni Center, attended by several of Steve’s old friends (including Christopher Craft, former Chairman of the Indiana University Alumni Association and President and Chief Operating Officer of the Specialty Finance Group of First Source Bank of South Bend, Indiana, a long-time lender in the private aircraft industry), as well as a number of university representatives, and then everyone strolled across the street to watch the football game as guests of IU President Pamela Whitten in her presidential suite.
At halftime, both Governor Holcomb and President Whitten met with Steve and posed for pictures with him and his wife. And then, on an absolutely ideal Midwestern autumn afternoon for football, under a brilliantly blue and cloudless sky and with temperatures in the mid-60s, the Hoosiers kept their unbeaten gridiron record intact, pounding out a convincing 31-17 victory over Washington before an ecstatic sell-out crowd of 53,082, a towel-waving, roaring ocean of crimson-clad fans, a jubilant IU Memorial Stadium atmosphere unlike anything Steve had ever seen going all the way back to his undergraduate days. Even Governor Holcomb acknowledged it was the most unique setting he could ever remember for the investiture of a Sagamore of the Wabash.
Interviewed after the ceremony, Steve said, “I’m very honored to receive the Sagamore of the Wabash award and appreciate the traditions it represents. I’m very grateful for the various successes I’ve enjoyed throughout my career, and I have always felt my Indiana upbringing, the values I learned growing up in Anderson and attending school in Bloomington, played an important role in making me the person I am today.” He continued, “Even though I now live in Beverly Hills, California, my Indiana roots are still a big part of me and I’m very proud of my Hoosier heritage.”
Although Steve is probably best known in Hollywood for his representation of clients like Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie, both the Republican governor and state representative also took note of the fact that Steve and his law firm had provided the legal services when then-private citizen, New York real estate magnate and reality show television star Donald Trump acquired a Boeing 757 jetliner from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2012, an airplane that would later become recognized worldwide as “Trump Force One” during the 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns.
Stephen Hofer left the Miami Herald and his career in journalism in 1977 to attend Northwestern University’s School of Law and he graduated in 1980 as winner of the school’s most prestigious honor, the Lowden-Wigmore Award. He then worked for the internationally known law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the organizing committee for the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games, and as vice president of American Golf Corporation before moving into the aviation legal field in 1992. He founded Aerlex Law Group in 2005. In the 21 years since then, Aerlex has represented more than 1,100 whole and fractional aircraft buyers, sellers and lessees in transactions having an aggregate value of more than $8 billion and Steve Hofer has been recognized as one of the preeminent aviation attorneys in the world by such organizations as Super Lawyers, Spear’s magazine and Chambers and Partners.