“Interesting” is perhaps an understated word to use in reviewing the tumultuous recent period the business aviation community has gone through, but that is the word outgoing NBAA chairman Jeff Lee chose to describe his two-year tenure, which ends at this year’s annual meeting. Lee, IBM’s director of flight operations, took over the post from Ken Emerick in 2007 and has led the board through several stiff challenges to business aviation. “The unprecedented challenges from all sides have really shaken up the industry,” Lee told NBAA Convention News. “The attacks from Congress and the White House and others have challenged the validity of what we do without understanding what our membership looks like.”
It has been nearly a year since the heads of the “Big Three” Detroit auto manufacturers flew to Washington seeking bailout funds and inadvertently triggered a firestorm of criticism directed toward business aviation and its perceived “fat-cat” image. “I think there is a misunderstanding among the broader community–certainly among those who are elected to represent us–and in the media of the importance of business aviation and general aviation as a whole to the community,” said Lee, who believes that change in business aviation’s perception and understanding by the public should come from its members. “We do a great job teaching our aviation managers about safety and security and operations maintenance, how to be efficient and compliant with regulations, but we’re not very good about helping them understand how to interact with local communities, how to interact with their elected representatives. It’s not our comfort zone and yet, as we go forward, this is going to be important for our growth and our clarity as an industry.”
