Derks Looks To The Future With Excitement... And Caution
The hard-working staff of AEA chalked up an amazing presentation
with the close of the 51st Annual AEA Convention, concluded just
days ago in the shadow of Washington, DC.
Nearly 1,800 avionics and aviation industry professionals from
more than 15 countries attending the Aircraft Electronics
Association’s four-day event from April 23-26. According to
Paula Derks, president of the AEA, this year’s convention was
truly an international gathering of industry professionals. During
the AEA’s annual convention, 25 new products were introduced;
nearly 95 hours of training was offered; more than $135,000 in
scholarships were awarded, which was a record high; and 98
companies — another record — were honored with the
Avionics Training Excellence Award.
“Our efforts in creating the pipeline of prospects for our
academic members runs parallel with our effort to provide
continuous regulatory and technical training once these technicians
enter the field,” said Mike Adamson, vice president of member
programs and education for the AEA. “These record numbers are
indicative of the success AEA has had in being the preferred
provider of training and education resources for the avionics and
repair station community.”
The AEA Trade Show portion of the event featured 144 exhibitors
throughout the 72,000-square-foot exhibit hall at the Gaylord
National Resort on the Potomac River.
Other convention highlights included:
- Honoring three international members with the AEA Lifetime
Achievement Award
- Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives,
spoke to attendees during the AEA Annual Awards Luncheon.
- EMTEQ was named the 2008 AEA Associate Member of the Year, and
Gary Harpster of Duncan Aviation was named the 2008 AEA Member of
the Year.
In between technical and business training, the AEA offered
regulatory updates sessions and various FAA panels. Regulatory
agencies were significantly represented during the AEA’s
convention, including participation from Nick Sabatini, associate
administrator,
Aviation Safety, and dozens of FAA and international program
managers and field inspectors representing aviation on four
different continents.
“In our efforts for continuous improvement, the
opportunity to meet with FAA leadership is priceless — both
so that FAA headquarters can visit with industry, and also for
industry to meet with the FAA decision-makers,” said Ric
Peri, vice president of government and industry affairs for the
AEA. “In order to be prepared for the future, this was a
great opportunity to see what is coming on the radar
screen.”
Aero-TV covered this year's event AGGRESSIVELY... so, keep an
eye out for DOZENS of programs that were generated from our
attendance and coverage of this pivotal event...
But first, let's start the
ball rolling with our interview with AEA's accomplished President,
Paula Derks, on ALL things avionics.
About Aero-TV: It's DEFINITELY Show
Time!!!!
OK, folks, here we go... we are NOW initiating the first
feature programming series for Aero-TV... we're going to take it
slow, but we're also going to try and be steady about this. DO
UNDERSTAND that this is the most complex media program we've ever
undertaken and what you're seeing is just the tip of the iceberg...
but from here on out, we will be doing our best to educate,
inform, and entertain YOU about all aspects of the exciting worlds
of aviation and aerospace.
If you've been an observer of the media and associated media
industries over the last few years, it's not hard to mistake the
fact that a massive revolution is taking place. Old sources for
news and information are falling by the wayside, having to change
their modus operandi or risk obsolescence (or extinction).
Electronic media and print media are both under the assault of
progress, and the online world has been a cornerstone for
revolutionary change.
We've been ready to go for a while, but to be honest, there's so
much more to this program than we've alluded to, and so we've been
building and planning a massive new organization within ANN. That
said, we're hiring talented new people as
fast as we can find them (a far more difficult
task than we had imagined -- REALLY good people are hard to find),
and we're brainstorming at speeds that would make a deorbiting
Space Shuttle feel like a slug. Suffice it to say that we wanted to
do this right, rather than right-now, and that the development of
this program has been the most carefully pursued undertaking we've
ever undertaken.
E-I-C Note: The
complete feature shown above is embedded in this
story, with most of the slick and useful functionality
otherwise available on the main Aero-TV site (which will be
upgraded aggressively over the next few weeks). The ability to
embed a video on another web page is but one of the hundreds
of amazing little features that we've worked hard on, for many
months now, to implement in different phases of the initial
release of Aero-TV. It is, BY NO MEANS, the only way to enjoy
unaltered Aero-TV programming on other parts of the web... as we
have extensive plans for future functionality, but this
feature allows those with an interest in a specific Aero-TV News or
Feature program to embed it on a different web site, though we
must note that we reserve the right to forbid such use for those
sites or purposes that we do not feel fit in with the proper
mission of the Aero-News Network, Inc.
Webmasters or Administrators of well-trafficked aviation or
aerospace related sites, are welcome to contact the Publisher to
start conversations on how they may be able to leverage some of the
immense power of Aero-TV programming for their sites and
constituency by clicking the I Want Aero-TV For
MY Website! link.
Coming Soon!
Aero-TV Presents An EXTENSI(VE Look At All The
Wonders of the 2008 AEA Convention, And Takes A GOOD Look At
Honeywell's KFD840 and KNS770!, Revisits the Aspen Avionics
Program, Checking Out the Cirrus SR20, Seeing What It Takes to
"Compete" As An AMT, Looks At The FAA FAASTeam Program,
Updates On The Garmin 495, Flying The Piper Matrix, Hears
What's Hot At Blue Mountain Avionics, Gets Some GREAT Rotax
Lessons, Gets Updated On ALL Things Lopresti, Has A FUN Chat With
Corkey Fornof, Sees What Happens When AMTs Compete, Checks Out The
Ltest in Life-Raft Technologies, Checks Out More "HIGH" Tech
at I/ITSEC 2007, Hears From AOPA On Critical Aviation Issues,
Spills Some Juicy (and HIGHLY Detailed) Cirrus G3 Info, Scores
A BUNCH of LSA Reports, and SO MUCH MORE!!!!! Do NOT Miss
Them!
ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (04.15.24)
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