diff --git a/airflow/models.py b/airflow/models.py
index b1c589582e..36342f13ad 100644
--- a/airflow/models.py
+++ b/airflow/models.py
@@ -927,10 +927,11 @@ class DAG(Base):
             self, dag_id,
             schedule_interval=timedelta(days=1),
             start_date=None, end_date=None, parallelism=0,
-            full_filepath=None):
+            full_filepath=None, executor=DEFAULT_EXECUTOR):
 
         utils.validate_key(dag_id)
         self.dag_id = dag_id
+        self.executor = executor
         self.end_date = end_date or datetime.now()
         self.parallelism = parallelism
         self.schedule_interval = schedule_interval
@@ -1088,11 +1089,9 @@ class DAG(Base):
         session.merge(self)
         session.commit()
 
-    def run(
-            self, start_date=None, end_date=None, mark_success=False,
-            executor=DEFAULT_EXECUTOR):
+    def run(self, start_date=None, end_date=None, mark_success=False):
         session = settings.Session()
-        job = BackfillJob(executor=executor)
+        job = BackfillJob(executor=self.executor)
         session.add(job)
         session.commit()
         job.run(self, start_date, end_date, mark_success)
diff --git a/dags/examples/example1.py b/dags/examples/example1.py
index 6a23778e8d..d7438ae9b9 100644
--- a/dags/examples/example1.py
+++ b/dags/examples/example1.py
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 from airflow.operators import BashOperator, MySqlOperator, DummyOperator
 from airflow.models import DAG
+from airflow.executors import SequentialExecutor
+from airflow.executors import LocalExecutor
 from datetime import datetime
 
 default_args = {
@@ -8,7 +10,8 @@ default_args = {
     'mysql_dbid': 'local_mysql',
 }
 
-dag = DAG(dag_id='example_1')
+dag = DAG(dag_id='example_1', executor=LocalExecutor())
+# dag = DAG(dag_id='example_1', executor=SequentialExecutor())
 
 cmd = 'ls -l'
 run_this_last = DummyOperator(
@@ -45,3 +48,4 @@ task = MySqlOperator(task_id='also_run_mysql', sql=sql, **default_args)
 dag.add_task(task)
 task.set_downstream(run_this_last)
 task.set_upstream(create_table)
+
diff --git a/dags/examples/simple.py b/dags/examples/simple.py
index 24c419edd6..3ffa6e39e0 100644
--- a/dags/examples/simple.py
+++ b/dags/examples/simple.py
@@ -1,16 +1,17 @@
 from airflow.operators import MySqlOperator
 from airflow.executors import SequentialExecutor
+from airflow.executors import LocalExecutor
 from airflow import DAG
 from datetime import datetime
 
 # Setting some default operator parameters
 default_args = {
-            'owner': 'max',
+                'owner': 'max',
                 'mysql_dbid': 'local_mysql',
                 }
 
 # Initializing a directed acyclic graph
-dag = DAG(dag_id='simple', )
+dag = DAG(dag_id='simple', executor=LocalExecutor())
 
 # MySQL Operator
 sql = "TRUNCATE TABLE tmp;"