CAM Governing Board Begins Accreditation Process

June 13, 2011

The NBAA Certified Aviation Manager (CAM) Governing Board met June 6-10, 2011, to begin the process of obtaining accreditation for the CAM program, which identifies qualified professionals to lead flight departments and companies that use business aircraft. The goal is to obtain National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) accreditation by July 2013.

“Gaining NCCA accreditation is important to the future of the CAM program,” said CAM Governing Board Chairman Scott Rose. “It’s not only the sign of a well managed program; it also ensures the program follows best practices established for certification programs across all professions.”

Dr. Tom Carney of NBAA Member Purdue University, and past chairman of the CAM Governing Board, will lead the accreditation effort. “The accreditation process is a lengthy one.” said Carney. “After nearly a decade of development, the CAM program has finally reached a level of maturity where accreditation is possible. This process will validate the strength of the current program.”

CAM Exam Question Development

In addition to accreditation efforts, the CAM Governing Board’s Testing Committee participated in an item writing workshop, where new questions were developed for the CAM Exam test question bank. To date the committee has approved a bank of 600 active questions, from which future CAM Exams are developed. The process was facilitated by Schroeder Measurement Technologies, Inc. (SMT), experts in the field of psychometrics, the science of developing quantitative tests for measuring knowledge, aptitude and other psychological traits. SMT has been facilitating the CAM Exam development for the past five years.

Dr. Guy Smith, department chair of Embry-Riddle’s Applied Aviation Science department serves on the CAM Governing Board and CAM Testing Committee chairman. “I have true faith in the exam development process” said Smith. “The process is rather complicated, involving writing, reviewing, editing and committee approvals of each item. When the exams are assembled, I have full confidence that they are a good measure of aviation management skills.”

CAM Meetings Scheduled for NBAA2011

Current CAMs are invited to participate in the next CAM Governing Board Testing Committee item writing workshop to be held on Sunday, October 9 in conjunction with the NBAA 64th Annual Meeting & Convention (NBAA2011) in Las Vegas.

CAMs are also invited to attend the CAM Governing Board meeting, held on Monday, October 10, as well as a luncheon at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Those interested in learning more about the CAM program should attend the CAM Program Update on Monday, October 10 at 3:00 p.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

For more information on these events, or the CAM program, please contact NBAA’s Jay Evans at jevans@nbaa.org.