…NBAA: Transition Is Our Middle Name

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Brown’s appointment comes as a tumultuous year at the NBAA heads into its home stretch: the association’s annual meeting. With Bolen apparently firmly at the stick, any additional changes will likely be handled with similar deftness. One task remaining to be performed is backfilling the vice president of government and public affairs position, which will be vacated by Pete West on Nov. 1. Once that slot is filled — a decision on which would be unlikely until the outcome of the U.S. presidential campaign is known (and who knows when that could be …) — the NBAA’s year of living dangerously could finally be over. Even more interesting, however, will be the extent to which Bolen and Brown seek to transform the NBAA. One of the reasons former association President Shelly Longmuir left the organization earlier this year was her perceived failure to implement change. While learning the true nature of her tenure — did she fail to make changes after the board of directors approved them or did the NBAA board resist her attempts at a makeover? — may still be in the future, it’s a pretty fair bet that the Bolen/Brown team is in this for the long haul and won’t make Longmuir’s mistakes. Another fair bet is that the association will not closely resemble itself by this time next year, either in the composition of its staff or the impact of its policy-related activities at the FAA, on Capitol Hill, in the GA manufacturing sector or in the domestic and international operator communities. And for the rank and file NBAA member, that’s probably a good thing.

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