Tue, Oct 11, 2011
Al Ueltschi Award For Humanitarian Leadership Presented To
Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
The opening general session of the NBAA 2011 Meeting and
Convention in Las Vegas was a call to action on the part of
industry and government leaders in a time of political and economic
uncertainty.
Senator Manchin (D-WV)
“Every state benefits from general aviation,”
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) told the Attendees gathered for the
NBAA2011 Opening General Session Monday morning. “This
industry provides 1.2 million manufacturing and service
jobs.”
The senator’s message was delivered by each of the
policymakers and businesspeople sharing the stage in Las
Vegas with NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen at the opening
general session: their work – whether it’s
creating jobs, considering safety or other policies, growing a
multinational company or providing humanitarian relief –
would be impossible without business aviation.
Dave Everitt, president of the agricultural and turf division at
John Deere & Company, made it clear just how essential business
aviation is to his company’s work providing mechanized farm
equipment all over the world. Reflecting on his travel schedule
last June, Everitt said that he visited India, South Carolina, four
cities in China and four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa within one
month – and managed to make it home every weekend.
“There’s just no way I could have traveled to that many
places in that short of time without the John Deere Aviation
Department,” said Everitt. “For me, it’s the
closest thing I have to a time machine.”
Former Senator Frist
One of the most moving testimonials to business aviation came
from former Senate Majority Leader, pilot and heart surgeon Dr.
Bill Frist, whom Bolen presented with NBAA’s 2011 Al Ueltschi
Award for Humanitarian Leadership. “The field of heart
transplantation would not have been possible – could not have
developed – without the freedom to schedule of business
aviation,” said Frist. He further emphasized that none of the
humanitarian missions for which he was being honored – to
Haiti, Somalia, Bangladesh and many other places – would not
have been possible without business aviation.
When Federal Aviation Administrator Randy Babbitt took the stage to
explain the benefits of a Next Generation (“NextGen”)
aviation system, he emphasized that achieving the benefits of the
modernization effort depends on operators’ willingness to
invest in the necessary equipment and training. “Because the
state-of-the-art business aircraft that many of you operate have
some of the most sophisticated avionics available, business
aviation operators are probably the best equipped to make use of
these new procedures,” said Babbitt. But he also said that
there is a responsibility on the part of the industry to make an
investment in the technology that will make NextGen a viable
reality.
On safety, Babbitt cited the industry’s critical role:
“We have the safest aviation system in the world, bar
none,” he said. “The business aviation community, and
NBAA in particular, plays a very important role in helping us
achieve that fantastic safety record and success.”
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman
agreed, citing the number of corporate fatal accidents in the last
year: “zero.”
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