April 15, 2020
NBAA staff members will provide students with an overview of business aviation career paths during a Business Aviation Careers and Opportunities webinar hosted by the University of North Dakota (UND) at 5:30 p.m. CDT on Thursday, April 16.
Part of the UND Speaker Series, the free Zoom webinar will take shape as an unscripted, interactive dialogue between panelists and the UND audience.
Doug Carr, NBAA’s vice president of regulatory and international affairs, will provide the UND participants an overview of business aviation operations, including how the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act are affecting the industry.
“Aviation as a whole may look different when this [COVID-19 crisis] is over,” said Carr, “but the business aviation industry will still be here, and students should use this timeout to get involved and learn about all available career opportunities.”
Jo Damato, CAM, NBAA’s vice president of educational strategy and workforce development, will discuss the variety of business aviation professional opportunities students can pursue after graduation, as well as those they can get involved with now as students, such as scholarship, mentoring and internship programs and NBAA’s Young Professionals (YoPro) initiative.
Professor Shayne Daku, associate chair of UND Aviation and testing committee chair of NBAA’s Certified Aviation Manager Governing Board, will moderate the panel and deliver audience questions posed through Zoom chat at the end of the 90-minute session.
Additional participants – all UND alums – include Mark Larsen, CAM, NBAA senior manager of safety and flight operations; Sarah Wolf, CAM, NBAA senior manager of security and facilitation; and Steve Thorpe, Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. director of standards and training, who received NBAA’s Dr. Tony Kern Professionalism in Aviation Award in 2019. Each will describe the career paths they took following graduation and will answer audience questions.
“Mark’s perspective will be especially interesting because he was a UND student during 9/11,” said Kristi Ivey, NBAA’s northern mountain regional representative. “How he addressed the career challenges then may support and guide today’s students.”
International Business Aviation Council Ltd.