General Aviation Industry Veteran Wins Noteworthy Recognition

March 14, 2014

NBAA salutes Brad Mottier, vice president and general manager of General Electric’s Business and General Aviation Integrated Systems Division, who recently won the Aviation Week Laureate Award for Business and General Aviation.

Mottier is an engineer and an avid general aviation pilot who owns a Husky bush plane. Under his direction, GE has made significant investments in recent years in new turboprop and jet engines, including the H-80 turboprop that won FAA certification in 2012, and the HF-120 – developed in conjunction with Honda – which powers the HondaJet.

Mottier began working on advanced ignition systems at Unison Industries while attending graduate school at the University of Illinois. He won several patents, including one for the SlickStart electronic magneto start booster.

Joining Unison full-time after obtaining his graduate engineering degree, Mottier spent 20 years with the company and became president and CEO before GE acquired it in 2002. He continued to serve as president of Unison until September 2005, when he was named vice president and general manager of GE Aviation’s Service operation, which provides maintenance, repair and overhaul services worldwide.

Mottier was GAMA chairman in 2013, when the association focused its efforts on congressional passage of the Small Airplane Revitalization Act. The law, which was signed by the president late last year, directs the FAA to consider the recommendations of a Part 23 Reorganization Aviation Rulemaking Committee, and is designed to facilitate a doubling of general aviation safety while cutting the costs of FAA certification by 50 percent.

Mottier was one of three nominees for the Business and General Aviation Laureate. The others were Mason Holland, the CEO of Eclipse Aerospace, who headed a group of investors that took over the Albuquerque, NM manufacturer after its bankruptcy in 2009, and Kenn Ricci, the principal of Directional Aviation, whose holdings include Nextant Aerospace, Constant Aviation, charter brokers Spinnaker Air and Sentient Jet, and the FlexJet fractional aircraft operation formerly owned by Bombardier.