Dahlke graduated from Mountain Home High School in 1983. He graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Education from Arkansas Tech University in 1987 before going to the University of Arkansas as a Graduate Assistant in 1987 and 1988. Dahlke was Nationally Certified by the BOC in February of 1988.
In June of 1988, Dahlke was employed by Dr. Doug Parker in Van Buren, Arkansas where he was placed as the first athletic trainer at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. Dahlke was at Arkansas Tech University until 1993 where he started the internship program and while there had 7 students go on and make athletic training their profession of choice. He also had the privilege to go to the USOC Training Center, have two back to back NAIA National Championship Women’s Basketball teams, be a co-founder with his good friend Ken Cole of the Arkansas State Student Trainers Camp and has worked as an associate with the Justin Professional Rodeo Sports Medicine Program.
In May of 1993 he moved to Van Buren to work as the Director of Athletic Training and Physical Therapy for Parker Orthopedic and Spine Institute as well as to assist Dr. Parker with his music business in Nashville, TN. Dahlke did this until Dr. Parker’s death in June of 1995.
Dahlke then joined Cooper Clinic in 1995 and he and two others started and built the Sports Medicine department which at one point employed 7 athletic trainers. He was elected President-elect of the AATA in 1997 and served in that capacity until taking over the position of President a year early. He then served his term as President for two years then past president for the following two years. Since that time, he has been elected to be the Arkansas State Representative to SWATA for the past 2 years and is up for that election again this year. He has been on the board of the AATA for a total of 10 years out of the 16 years that he has been certified. He has also been the NATABOC Test Site Administrator for the Arkansas site since 1998.
In May of 2002, Dahlke started his own business, which is DWD Testing, Inc, in Van Buren, Arkansas in which he travels the state performing functional capacity evaluation on Workman’s Compensation, long term disability and Social Security patients. Along with two partners he opened Greenwood Physical Therapy Center in Greenwood and Physical Therapy Plus in Pine Bluff this past year. Dahlke also in March of this year took the place of David Chrisman as the sales representative for Alert Services, Inc.
Dahlke is married to the former Karen Mitchell of Van Buren. They are the parents of two daughters, BreAnne and Kelsey.