NBAA Honors Award Winners at 54th Annual Meeting and Convention

Washington, DC – The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) honored its 2001 award winners in presentations held during the opening day of its 54th Annual Meeting & Convention at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. During the Evening Networking Reception, NBAA recognized Paul H. Poberezny with the Award for Meritorious Service to Aviation, Myron W. Collier with the John P. “Jack” Doswell Award, John A. Pope with the Staff Lifetime Achievement Award and eight Member Companies with the 50 Year Safe Flying Achievement Award. The Association also recognized Albert Lee Ueltschi with the American Spirit Award during the President’s Luncheon held earlier in the day.

With a career spanning more than 60 years, Meritorious Service to Aviation Award Recipient Paul Poberezny is best known as founder and chairman of the board of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), an international organization representing the interests of amateur aircraft builders, sport aviation enthusiasts and others involved in recreational aviation. Under Poberezny’s guidance, EAA has grown from a handful of members in 1953 to more than 170,000 members worldwide today. Each year, EAA’s international Fly-In Convention, named “EAA AirVenture,” draws more than 800,000 people and 12,000 airplanes to Oshkosh, WI for one of the world’s premier aviation events.

Doswell Award Recipient Myron Collier served as a Member of the NBAA Board of Directors from 1986 to 1994. During this period, he was a member of the NBAA Nominating and Industry Affairs Committees and acted as chairman of the RNAV Subcommittee of the NBAA Airspace/Air Traffic Committee. While chairman of the RNAV Subcommittee, Collier authored an NBAA booklet titled RNAV and the Controller, which was published and distributed to the Membership and used as a training aid by all FAA Air Traffic Control Centers in the United States. Other Collier writings include nearly 40 articles about RNAV and related avionics, which were published by magazines such as Professional Pilot.

The NBAA Board of Directors selected former employee John A. Pope as the first recipient of the NBAA Staff Lifetime Achievement Award. This award recognizes Pope for his years of service to NBAA Members as a Staff member between 1961 and 1984. In particular, it honors Pope for his energy in building the Association’s Membership, his focus on the safety standards of business aviation through promoting a company operations manual, and his overall dedication to the safety and efficiency of business aviation.

American Spirit Award Recipient Al Ueltschi established FlightSafety International at New York’s LaGuardia Airport in 1951, and today he serves as its chairman and CEO. He also gained many thousands of airline flying hours with Pan American World Airways between 1941 and 1968. In addition, since the early 1980s, he has been closely involved with Project Orbis, an international nonprofit aircraft-based teaching eye hospital that travels to the world’s less-developed areas to teach sight-saving techniques and surgical procedures. Ueltschi has served for many years as chairman of Orbis International.

NBAA awarded the 50 Year Safe Flying Achievement Award for 2001 to the following Member Companies: A.K. Steel Corp., Armstrong World Industries, Becton Dickenson & Co., Koch Industries Inc., Lane Aviation Corp., Modern Welding Co. Inc., South Carolina Dept. of Commerce and Therm-O-Disc. NBAA Flying Safety Award winners in the categories of Corporate Business Flying, Commercial Business Flying, Pilot Safety, Aviation Maintenance Department, Maintenance/Avionics Technician and Aviation Support Services also were recognized during the Evening Networking Reception.

During the Evening Networking Reception, NBAA also recognized the members of the New Orleans Local Committee for their support of the 54th Annual Meeting & Convention and for acting as liaisons between the Convention, the city of New Orleans and the New Orleans business aviation community. This year’s Local Committee Chair was Janice K. Barden of Aviation Personnel International, last year’s American Spirit Award winner. Barden has served as NBAA Local Committee Chairman for a total of seven times – in 1975, 1985, 1987, 1990, 1994, 2000 and 2001, all in New Orleans – more than any other person in NBAA history and the only woman to serve as chair.

For more information about the NBAA Awards Program, visit www.nbaa.org/awards.