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The fun & fascinating stories of Supply Chain & Logistics.
Bryndis 0:02
Hi. My name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. My guest for this episode is aviation expert Greg Principato. Greg's career has included being the President of the Airports Council International North America, the President and CEO of the National Association of State Aviation Officials, and most recently, was the president and CEO of the National Aeronautic Association of the United States. Greg is currently the president of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale World Airsports Federation. I was honored to have Greg join me via zoom from Virginia, and share with us his passion for aviation. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did, chatting with my friend Greg Principato. Have a wonderful day.
So I'm here today with Greg Principato, and we're talking a lot about aviation, but a lot of different areas that have kind of happened in the world and different discussions today. So thank you so much for being here.
Greg 1:10
Thanks for having me. It's great to be reconnected with you.
Bryndis 1:13
Yes, it's great. We had some good conversations over the years about various kinds of topics too. So tell me a little bit about your kind of career history, so you've kind of had a multi variety experience, which is excellent, so.
Greg 1:31
Yeah, I think it's funny. I've already talked to college students, for example, my two step daughters, and they say, you know, they want to know, they want to make a decision when they're 20 that'll affect where they are when they're 68 which is how old I am. And I just laugh, you know, and say I wanted to be ambassador to the Soviet Union when I was in college. And yeah, here we are. I didn't do well in the Russian language, so that took that away right away, anyway. But yeah, I started in politics. I worked for a US senator from Louisiana named Bennett Johnston, and back in those days, he was a Conservative Democrat. Here in the US, there used to be those, and he was probably more conservative than some of the liberal Republicans, and he was one of those people that helped make things happen. So it was great to jump right in and be part of solutions and not just write stuff saying the other side's terrible. Used to be like that in the old days. After a few years of that, I took a job as a legislative assistant to Joe Biden, who was the senator from Delaware at the time, and it was, it was long enough ago. He was still in his 30s when I got that job and worked for him for four years, doing a variety of domestic issues. And then I got the job that really was the fulcrum of my career. Everybody's got that one job that everything else turns on. And so I got a job with the governor of Virginia, a fellow named Jerry Beliles, who we remained friends with until five years ago. And he was very interested in economic development. He was very interested in transportation and aviation. As a part of that, one of the first things that he did, and it was fun to be part of, was pass the biggest tax increase in the history of the state, and all of it went to transportation. Oh, wow, highways, airports, seaports and rail. By the way, it had 85% approval in the polls, because people understood that it was going to improve their lives, and that we worked on the legislation creating the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. So we worked on the project that led to the Smithsonian opening the Big Air and Space Museum over by Dulles. So really was a sort of an immersion in aviation, along with all the other issues. And then I went with him to the private sector. And sort of the big moment came in 1993 when President Clinton and the Congress created a commission. We had Pan Am Eastern and Braniff going out of business, McDonnell Douglas was on its way out. And this commission to figure out what happened all of our most of our meetings were on C span, which is the public interest TV network here that covers Congress and other things like that. And we produced a report. This is 1993, talking about air traffic control and some other things opening international markets. But at that point, became an aviation person, and just to fast forward a bit, that it's good to have that that base, because I think,
Bryndis 4:26
I think so.
Greg 4:27
You know, whoever's listening to this, or anything else, you know when you start, when you're 23 years old, you know your career is going to take twists and turns. So in 2005 I was hired to be CEO of Airports Council International North America, which was the trade association for US and Canadian airports. One of the best parts of that job, by the way, was going to Canada five or six times a year, and I've been to every province but two. So it wasn't just going to the usual, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, it was going to a lot of other places. And it was a great job. And we were involved in the global airport community. Had a lot of fun, and we'll get to more of that in a minute, I think. And then I left that there's an organization that states US, states that are involved in aviation are part of so our CEO of that for two years, and then was hired to be the CEO of the National Aeronautic Association, the oldest aviation organization in the US, national one, overseas aviation records, you used to in the old days, the first days of aviation, they issued pilots licenses in the US. So a lot of the great aviation names from the early days got their pilots licenses. And Orville Wright used to sign the licenses for that kind of thing. It was a lot of fun to do that. I retired from that about a year and a half ago. And as you can see from the background, I have here, I got elected president of this group back here, the apologies to your French speaking. Federation Aeronautic International, which is the oldest global aviation organization in the world. Oh, wow. And really, it is, and its main goal is not just to promote aviation, but the main goal is to be the International Federation recognized by the Olympic committee to oversee airports. Oh, so I got elected president of that, which is a board chair type position, three months ago. So
Bryndis 6:27
Congratulations.
Greg 6:28
Thank you. I failed in retirement. I didn't just take another job, but I took a job that doesn't pay me anything,
Bryndis 6:38
yeah, but it sounds like it's a fascinating area, just to learn all about too, so
Greg 6:44
It is, and you know, one of the great things about it is, you know, talk to people who are, you know, work just the line at airports, right, and line at airlines or whatever, all the way to astronauts have flown to the moon, and so many of them got their start with air sports, whether building models, whether going to an air show and seeing someone fly upside down, which I would never do, by the way, go to a drop zone and see people you know, floating down, another thing I would never do, floating out of airplanes. So it's a really interesting part of the aviation world and it's fun to be part of it.
Bryndis 7:19
Oh, excellent. Well, and what a good way to like, build on different areas too, like so when you were at the Airforce Council International, so when you were working there, what a great opportunity to really learn a lot about, you know, various, you know, areas in North America. But I mean, no airport is the same. And you've got a very large scale, you know, the biggest ones in the world, and you've got a very tiny one or two kinds of airport.
Greg 7:55
Well, there's an old saying in the airport industry, when you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport, yeah. And unlike a lot of people in aviation, I did not grow up with jet fuel in my veins. I'm not a pilot. I used to I lived under the flight path from Newark Airport in New Jersey,
Bryndis 8:13
Okay,
Greg 8:13
and the planes would go overhead, and I always wondered where they were coming from, where they were going. My mom always encouraged me to, you know, see the world and all that. So, you know, taking the job at the Airports Council really fed into that. You know, interest in aviation as an economic development tool. I mean, to me, that's what it is. So connecting communities to the world market. Somebody once told me that about a third of our US trade by value, traveled by air. You know, there's so many parts to this. And it's working in the airport side really brought a lot of that together, yeah,
Bryndis 8:50
And it really is a really big economic driver, like I look at, you know, a smaller airport, like Red Deer, Alberta, and how much they need to actually, to rely on that airport to potentially grow whereas, you know, it becomes like such a big part of an of a driver that you can have.
Greg 9:11
Well, that's absolutely right. And it's not just that I lived for many years in Washington, DC, in the immediate area, three huge airports there, within the US we call large hub airports, meaning each one has more than 1% of the total traffic in the country. Now I live in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, which is about two and a half hours away, and we have a number of smaller commercial service and general aviation airports, and those are just as important to these communities as Washington Dulles and Reagan National are to Washington, DC, yeah, you know. And oddly enough, the job of the governor I told you about, the hardest part of that transportation package to explain to people is, why are you putting money into these airports in the middle of nowhere? And you have to, well, because they are you. If we want to bring business to that part of the state, that's their connection to the world, and, you know, bringing their executives in and out, their families, their products, and so that's really the part of aviation that really drove me, and that I really get excited about.
Bryndis 10:19
Completely because it does bring the world to the, you know, to those areas and but also, when you look at the, you know, development of the various different airports, they're so diverse. And, you know, you've probably seen a variety that way too, yeah.
Greg 10:41
Well, yeah, all sizes at ACI North America, we had Atlanta, which is the busiest airport in the world. And then we had, you know, Fort McMurray and places like that up in Canada and other, you know, smaller airports in the US and in Canada as well. And you know, and each of them was important in their own way, made a point each year to talk to the director of each airport at some some level, whether a phone call or the right person or whatever. And you know each one has needs, and their community has needs. And you know the airport plays such a vital role.
Bryndis 11:17
Well, and also, too, when you look at the the you know, all the different airports, and when you look at the United States versus Canada, you can see a little bit of a different model, because there's, I mean, a larger population base in the United States, but there's also a lot of smaller airports in the United States in comparison to Canada. But I think that, but I think that also leads into a few areas of potential growth both ways.
Greg 11:46
Yeah, you look at the, you know, out west in the US and Wyoming, or someplace like that, you're not going to have the population density. And obviously Canada, you have a lot of regions. I'm always, I saw a map recently that 50% of the population of Canada lives below like where I don't know what was it, Boston or similarly, the and so but we have a vast country with, I mentioned Fort McMurray, obviously, places like Calgary, Edmonton, further north, and so forth. And aviation is critically important, you know, to get around day to day. And also, if you want to, if you want to be part of the global economy, which, no matter what some politician wants to do about changing that, it's like changing the tide. You just can't. And so you're either going to succeed in it or not. And if you got that airport, that connection, that's going to help you do it.
Bryndis 12:44
Exactly. And when you were at the, you know, doing tours of various airports, was there one or two moments that kind of stood out of just a really kind of interesting or fun moment that you're like, Oh, I didn't even think of that.
Greg 12:59
Yeah, that's a, I wish I had a couple days to think about that one.
Bryndis 13:03
We can always come back to that. Yeah.
Greg 13:06
You know, you go to places and travel is so for people, travel is disorienting. I travel a lot. I've been gone. I've slept more nights outside of my home than inside my home this calendar year so far, I woke up the other morning in my own house not knowing where I was or why I was there.
Bryndis 13:28
Oh, wow. It's just we've all done that. Yeah, we've all done that.
Greg 13:31
And I think it doesn't matter whether you travel a lot like I do, or you do, or you travel once a year with your family and you want to go on vacation, you know, where am I and what's going on here. And so you go to a place like Nashville, and you hear country music, which I don't like very much, but it's their thing. Yeah, go to Austin, Texas, and you smell barbecue. And, you know, you go to these places. You go to Fresno, Yosemite airport, and they've got a model of that big tree, you know, that you can drive that's got a hole in the middle you can drive through. So, you know, I think airports do a really great job. Vancouver does a really good job of this, you know, giving you a sense of place. I think the other thing too is, as you know, we've talked before about sports. I'm an American football fan, a baseball fan, and those leagues are very much copycat leagues, whatever works here, so it's going to be stolen. And I remember being up in Canada and Vancouver had really sort of and Montreal had pioneered, this is 15 years or more ago now, that automated passport control, yeah, the kiosk, you put the password down and anything like that in the US at all. And it was still, you know, 911 wasn't all that long before in the liquid and gel plot and the shoes and all the rest.
Bryndis 14:54
Very much so.
Greg 14:55
And so we saw that. Oh, my goodness, we could do that. And so not long after, I went to see Janet Napolitano, who was the Secretary of Homeland Security here, and brought along Angela Gittens, who was the Director General of the Airports Council World Organization, and a former airport director herself in Atlanta and Miami, and the fellow who worked with me at ACI who did security, and we told Secretary Napolitano about this, and she had in the room with her the fellow who was running TSA, and the people running Customs and Border Protection, she just turned to them and said, find out about this. Let's do it.
Bryndis 15:33
Oh, yeah.
Greg 15:34
And so, and not long after, we had that kind of thing here now they're everywhere. I was in Geneva last month, and they have it there. They have it. But, you know, seeing, you know, going to a place in Canada where they're pioneering this technology, there's only a couple of airports at the time, and then bringing it back. I mean, the opportunity to do that in a job like that was really fabulous. And I'll always, yeah, if the job of the governor was the best job I ever had, that was the second best.
Bryndis 16:04
That's really neat to be able to make those connections and just make that, make that difference, too. It was interesting, as you were talking about just, you know, airports and disorientation, it almost makes me think a little bit about wayfinding and, you know, being able to figure out and navigate your way through, whether it's an airport or other ways too. And you know, the importance of ensuring that people can know where they're going becomes a really big piece.
Greg 16:32
Well, I understand it too. I mean, it's, I won't name any particular airports, but we've been in a few recently where returning the rental car was too much. Was more of a chore than it should have been, or finding our way through the airport. I think, I think too often, if I have a criticism of airports, too often the people who run them, they understand how the airport's laid out, and it makes perfect sense to them, but it's not going to make perfect sense to, you know, other people and because, like I said, travel is so disorienting, wayfinding is so important, and it's improved a lot over the years, but it could be better.
Bryndis 17:08
Exactly, yeah. And so when you kind of moved into your next role, what were the differences kind of, of course, going from the two different organizations and making that transition.
Greg 17:22
Yeah. So, you know, ACI And the state aviation organization were fairly similar, both very airport focused. The state aviation one may be a little bit more general aviation, airport focused. But again, like I said earlier, yeah. I mean, when you see one airport, you see one airport, but when you see in the communities airport, it's just as important to that community as whether it's Shenandoah Valley airport, here where I live, which is a general aviation airport 15 miles away, is very important to this area, just like Washington Dulles, that we flew into and out of my wife a couple days ago is important to that area. And then, you know, so what went from that to the National Aeronautic Association, and that one, the oldest national organization in America, was founded back in the day 1905, 18 months after the Wright brothers flew. Remember, back then, there was no Twitter. There was no you didn't see that. There wasn't one of these where you can pick up and say, oh, there's a picture.
Bryndis 18:22
Exactly, far from it, yeah.
Greg 18:25
And nobody, most people, didn't believe it happened, because nobody saw it with their own eyes-
Bryndis 18:29
Correct.
Greg 18:30
And so this organization was put together by, oddly enough, people who ran the automobile organization at the time, also a fairly new town. Finally, really you know, to just convince Americans that aviation was real and is going to be important. So here we are, 120 years later, and I think people still need to be convinced of that in a way. You know, that they know it's real, but you know, they take it for granted. And so, you know, back then it was, oh, it's real, huh? And then somebody would fly over their house to deliver mail, or there'd be an air show, and people would flock to it. I mean, we had the super bowl here a couple of days ago, all those people watched it on TV back in those days. If you had a big Air Race someplace, you know, 10s of 1000s of people would flock, would they to see the planes, and oftentimes, you know, with results that were astounding, and then some bad ones too, of course, because still in the infancy, or some tragedies that happen. But you know, people flock to it now. It's almost thinking about your personal relationships. Would you rather be taken for granted, or would you rather somebody just didn't know something about you? I think you'd rather the latter. We take aviation for granted. And you know, one of my roles at NAA, I thought was really to try to start changing that. So my successor there is just doing a great job of that, of doing that. So the thing about that organization at the airports, you have this sliver of the aviation industry, and sometimes we're on the same side as the airline, sometimes not. Sometimes you're on the same side as the pilot, sometimes not. I mean, there's, there's all this, you know, back and forth. At NEA, they didn't advocate for legislation or anything like that. They promoted aviation. It's an organization where you can have Boeing and Airbus at the same table. And they're not fighting each other, and you can have Bombardier full stream at the same table. Bombardier is a member, you know. So it was really great fun to be part of that. And so NAA certifies aviation records. So I signed record certificates over seven years for all kinds of folks, for all kinds of amazing feats, both in airplanes and on parachutes, and paragliders, there's anything you could think of. And they also have custody of America's biggest aviation awards, most of which are in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. And it was always amazing to help select the winner each year, the recipient. You know these, some of these awards, like the Collier Trophy, which is America's greatest aviation Achievement Award, have been given since 1911. Orville Wright actually received one, you know. And then, you know, my last year's there, we gave it to the Webb Space Telescope, which is looking back to the beginning of time, really, when you think about it,
Bryndis 21:35
Oh, totally, it really is, yeah,
Greg 21:37
it's a time machine, really, the helicopter on Mars and some of those things. And so to be able to celebrate aviation and to bring those stories to more people, I think was really a wonderful thing to be able to do.
Bryndis 21:49
Well and it really is because we, we know that you say this, we do really take aviation for granted in a way that we don't think of. Some of us, you know, are aviation geeks, or whatever. We know the airplane and the model and that, but a lot of people don't, and we just know that when we get onto the plane, we'll get off at the next destination, and not really focus on any of those other pieces.
Greg 22:17
Yeah, I think, you know, for a lot of people can't see because of the background I have, but the kitchen sink is literally behind me, and for a lot of people, being able to fly in an airplane to go to wherever isn't any more astounding than turning on your the faucet in your kitchen of water comes out. Yeah, oh, yeah, fine, yeah, whatever. It's not that big a deal. I mean, I'm old enough to remember people applauding when the plane landed.
Bryndis 22:42
I still do occasionally. Yeah,
Greg 22:46
I did once in recent years that was a pretty bad flight, but, but I'm old enough to remember the entire country shut down every time there was a space launch those kind of things. And now it's oh yeah, there was a launch the other day or three launches. And then, you know, in terms of the planes in the air, now, it's all my It was noisy, or emissions, or, you know, is this good, or, you know, those kinds of things. And meanwhile, aviation has done a great job, I think, of improving its environmental footprint. There's data that shows us this is provable. You know that the noise profile is much less than it was, the emissions so much less, and it's just getting better, and a lot of it is done even beyond or without government mandates. And it's still happening, whether it's economic pressure from the airlines who want a more efficient plane, or whatever it is. But, you know, a manufacturer wanting to make a plane that they know will be able to fly into London, Heathrow, for example, for 30 years with all the noise pressure they have, yeah, you know. And we just don't tell those stories often and well enough,
Bryndis 24:01
Well, and it's huge, because, you know, it does really change kind of perspective. So like during the pandemic, there was, it was, you know, you could tell when the flight patterns changed, because suddenly there was actually an airplane going over your head. And you're like, Oh, my goodness, it's been so long. Whereas, you know, you've got other neighborhoods or stuff like that where people constantly are, you know, complaining with the flight pattern or those kinds of areas too, so.
Greg 24:29
Yeah, there when in the US, you know, I followed a little bit the creation of nav Canada up there with the air traffic control and that commission. I told you that I was executive director. Our main recommendation was a more corporate structure for finance, for air traffic control, an idea that may maybe come back into fashion down here. But you know, as we sort of moved forward from that in the US, they call it, sort of calling it next gen, and it was really just basically better use in technology to do this in more efficient routings, which saved money and saved emissions and all those things. But sometimes that meant the plane was going over their house. And so then you'd see stories where journalists would say, next gen is causing aircraft noise. No, it's not. It's no, you know, and actually you know, not to open another can of worms. But the way journalists, you know, cover aviation is a source of long standing frustration. I think part of it is that aviation people don't talk to journalists in their language or talk to the public. Yeah, part of it is that sometimes the stories are too easy to write without the journalist having to dig down into it, and so that kind of thing happens sometimes.
Bryndis 25:49
Well, and it's, you know, similar for a lot of industries, but especially when you're you know, you have a passion, you know, you talk In kind of certain, well, language that doesn't easily translate sometimes, right?
Greg 26:04
And you know, when we did the commission in 1993 and the report was issued, one of the things we did was we had every meeting televised as we were the chair, who was the governor I told you about, and I planned everything. One of his goals, really, was that anybody watching, he wanted them to leave more educated about aviation than they started. And one of our themes that you know, the speech he gave when the report was released, and a lot of the other speeches he gave over the years, and ones that I give talk about how we aviation people mostly talk to each other, and as you say, we're passionate we understand, and we sometimes can't understand why the rest of the world just doesn't bow to our, you know, our opinions and our passion. But that's not the way it works, yeah.
Bryndis 26:57
Well, and you know, if you were to talk to someone that you know is a little less aware of the industry, what would be one or two things you'd really like them to kind of walk away with knowing?
Greg 27:12
I think the two big things are, whatever order you want. These two things, and I've referred to them each at some point in this conversation. But number one, the economic importance. It's not just a place for rich people to go fly off so forth. It's not just a place for big companies to have facilities around. It serves each community. And you know, it's not just people traveling to see Grandma, you know, people going to other big life events, it's people going to do business. You're able to ship your goods. If you're a manufacturer, you're able to send your executives, if you're more of a service industry, and the jobs that it creates and supports, I think people just don't understand that. I think they also just figure that, you know, it's all the airlines are running everything, and they don't care, or whatever, and the airport's part of the community. The airport doesn't go anywhere. And the airport needs to be continually, you know, modernized and improved. I always, I used to say, when I was at ACI that probably 90% of US airports are older than me. That was a lot. I was younger in my early 50s, when I would say no, 68 I think it's still I think it's still true, yeah, yeah. And it's not a good thing. So you know the need to invest in that airport and why that's important. I think people just don't understand that. They think it's a special interest. But when it is, when they want to go somewhere, they want it there. And I guess the other thing really is that I wish people knew how much effort the aviation community, whether it's manufacturers, airports, airlines, air sports, like what I do now, general aviation, air traffic control, whatever you want to say, how much they've put into improving the sustainability of aviation, new and better materials that planes are made out of, consume less fuel, make less noise. 25 years ago, I was very involved in a controversy about noisy airplanes. Before 911, 911 sort of took care of some of that, because the noisier planes were the older ones, and because of what they did to the market, a lot of them were retired. But you know, some, a lot of them were still flying with little modifications that just barely got their noise profile under a certain amount. And one of the problems at that time, the less if you made an engine, the less noise you would have it make, the more knocks or emissions would come out. And there was a very bad trade off, and the engine manufacturers have solved that, and so they can, you know, combine noise reduction with emissions reduction in a way they could 25 years ago, there was no regulation that told them to do that. So, you know, to me, I think I can't think of an industry that has a better environmental record and sustainability record than aviation has. The story is not told. We're very defensive. Oh, we're only 2% or whatever. No, you know,
Bryndis 30:21
Let's talk about the innovation, as opposed to, yeah,
Greg 30:24
Yeah. Talk about innovation. Talk about, you know, the jobs that were created from that, but also the reduction in noise, the reduction in, you know, emissions. Somebody once told me, you know, the Denver airports 54 square miles, that's their footprint, and people still complain about noise of planes going into and out of Denver, even though the plane is 20, 30,000 feet still in the air, you know, they can see it, and they can hear maybe a little hum. So there's always going to be some of that we just can't. We shouldn't be so defensive, but we should have a very positive story.
Bryndis 31:00
Exactly, and telling that story too, because there are so many different innovations that occur that we're just not aware of.
Greg 31:08
Yeah, that's right.
Bryndis 31:10
And so over your career, you've kind of seen a lot of changes in the industry. So whether it was after 911 or whether it was other kinds of areas, are you able to talk a little bit of the changes you've seen over the years?
Greg 31:27
Yeah, well, I think 25-30 years ago, more and more, I think customer service is a big area. So if something bad happened, the airline would usually help you, at least get a hot dog and help you find a place to stay. They just stopped doing that. They, you know, we're out.
Bryndis 31:48
I really even saw that just in the last 10 years. That huge difference, yeah.
Greg 31:52
And airports have really stepped into the breach. You know, to do that, we have some regulations here about how, you know, they need a lot of localities. You need to keep at least one concessionaire open, you know, during, you know, the non regular work hours kind of thing. So I think airports have had to take on a lot more of the customer service burden, than they used to. And I think they've done a great job. You know, the airport is there. And no matter what airline serves that airport that day-
Bryndis 32:26
The airlines, yeah, the airport's still there. Yeah.
Greg 32:29
Right. And so I think that's a huge thing. I think security, obviously, when I first took the job at ACI, it was 2005 so it was about three and a half years after the 911 attacks, and security was still kind of a mess, and people were getting used to it. You know, not only after the liquid and gel plot, the shoe, the shoe bomber, the bomber, exactly, all of those things happened during my first couple of years. I mean, I'll never forget the liquid and gel thing. That night, the TSA Administrator got a bunch of us on the phone before this was even made public, and the worst traversed words out of his mouth were lives are at stake. And then, you know, forces you to sit up and take notice. And so you had all these layers of things added on. What do you do about the shoes and the underwear bomber? And what that's led to is still having to sometimes take your shoes off working on that. But it led to the Trusted Traveler kind of approach, pre-check we have in the US and others. It led to the body scanner machines now that are so much, so much better, so much than they used to be. If you had to give everybody a pat down, you know, you would never, you know, get through the you know, you used to, you know, tell TSA, you know, we gotta figure this out. Because, you know, the post security environment was much more secure than it ever was after they checked for these things. But in the pre security environment, you had these people backed up. You had two, 300 people in a line, yeah, public area. I mean, talk about a security problem. And so everybody got together and just did a better job of putting in place pre-check, putting in place mobile passport control, which we did at ACI, putting in place the automated passport control, like they had talked about before, and all these things that have helped people get through the airport much more quickly. People still complain about it. Nobody likes it, but, you know, it's so much better and more efficient than it used to be, exactly.
Bryndis 34:35
And it is, I think the you know, sometimes we kind of wish that it was a little bit more standardized, or that, you know, every airport, or, you know, country had the same kind of regulation, so you like, in France, and one thing gets stopped, but then you're in at the US, and something else gets kind of stopped. But I think that's just, you know, something you can't quite change. But, yeah.
Greg 35:00
Well, every country's got a different issue, and, to be honest, a little bit of a random element, you know, we go to these, you know, we had security clearances in those jobs, and get these briefings. And one of the things they tell you, unclassified things, they tell you, is there has to be some kind of random element involved, so that, you know, the thing that the bad guys are really good at is figuring out what think about what the people did in 911 none of them did a single thing illegal, no, until they got up out of their seats. Box cutters were legal. You know, all of it. And so had to change some things, yeah. And, you know, keep learning, which is why, you know, it's hard to say right now, within two weeks of the accident in Washington, but why we've had so few aviation accidents in recent years really, 20 years, 15-20, years, we learned something from each one.
Bryndis 35:53
Very much so.
Greg 35:54
And, we had to add that layer in there. So I think, you know, just looking at that from going from the early days, post 911 to where we are now with the lessons we've learned and how well it works, no, I think it's been a great change.
Bryndis 36:11
Which is really good, and especially when you know, as you were just mentioning, when you look at kind of, you know, collisions or aircraft, you know moments that we see we've occurred, but we've learned a lot from it. So you know, whether it's, you know, the most recent two incidents in the United States, in Washington or Philadelphia, there was Swiss Air in Canada a number of years ago. There's but the learnings that we can take from those pieces really hopefully change, you know, regulations that way too.
Greg 36:48
Well I think one of the great things that happened, I think it's been duplicated in other places, here in the US, back in the 90s, the fellow who was the head of the pilots union, Randy Babbitt, who later became an FAA administrator, worked with the airlines and worked with the then FAA administrator to come up with this approach where, if you're, say, a pilot and something happens that somebody can learn from, you can report it, even if you know without any fear that you're going to be you know that you're going to lose part of your career advancement or whatever, and sharing information like that is so critical, and aviation just does a really good job of learning from things that nobody will ever know about, but that all together add up to this level of safety that you know really is astounding.
Bryndis 37:39
Yeah, well, going on from safety to something a little bit more on the fun side, tell me a little bit more about the kind of air sports and what, what various different kinds of air sports there are too. So just changing it out.
Greg 37:55
They are under the FAI umbrella, you have skydiving, both indoor and outdoor, you have air so, you know, those, those wind tunnels, especially that sticks up. I'm going to go to the World Championship indoor skydiving event in about six or eight weeks. Not going to I'm not going to participate. I'm not crazy, but aerobatic flying, so, you know, flying upside down and doing all those things. And the kind of the cool thing about some of these, by the way, let me just say they're not just frivolous, you know, they're my wife, who's also very involved in aviation, and I had dinner the other night with a woman named Patty Wagstaff, who's a world champion aerobatic flyer. Oh, wow, competing, competing, it's men too. I mean, it's, you know, the plane doesn't know whether you're man or woman, or, you know, gay or straight or black or white, or whatever, right, or anything. And, you know, she no longer competes. She flies in air shows. But she used that knowledge she gained, and she opened up a flying school, and she'll teach pilots. You know, here's what happens when you have a stall. Here's what happens when this happens or that happens and it contributes to safety. So, you know, the air support world isn't some people say, oh, you know, what are we doing? You know, spewing emissions in the air for giggles and part, it's inspiring. So it gets people interested in aviation, which I think we all think is a good thing, and it also has safety lessons. Gliding is another one. There was a world champion glider pilot who was talking recently. Somewhere I went, we're in a glider, you can do things you really probably can't do in a powered plane. And then you learn from that, and those lessons can transfer over. You know, there's paragliding, I think those people are really crazy. They run off the top of mountains, I mean, all these kinds of things in general aviation, whether it's plane races. Or it's setting records, you know, flying fastest from here to there. So, you know, you have all these, all these different disciplines. And, you know, I think it said the two things I love about it, number one, it is just inspiring. And we need to get more people in aviation. We have, we have a problem in aviation overall. We don't have enough people who are coming in. We have, you know, young people have other things to do, like we talked about before, when I was a kid. Oh my goodness, there's a plane up there. And oh my goodness, they've been blasting off into space, and now it's, you know, whatever. You know, I got this video game to play or something. And we also, frankly, have a problem. We don't have enough women in the pipeline. We don't have enough minority populations in the pipeline. And what we need to do, and the problem with that is not the demographic mix. That's not the problem at all. The problem is the numbers of people. We need to keep this industry going very much so the pipeline right now doesn't feed what we need. And you know, and we're not going to solve that problem unless we make it plain that women and that minority folks and other other folks are welcome and that they can, they can grow and thrive in aviation. Yeah, that's what's, I think, so destructive about some of this dei talk over the last three weeks down here, the exact number of, I can tell you the exact number of of pilots and controllers who got their jobs because they were female or black or or gay, and the exact number is zero, right?
Bryndis 41:36
Completely based on skill.
Greg 41:38
Yeah, skill. You have to earn it. We just want to make sure the pipeline is robust enough that we can do that. I almost forgot the question you asked that led me down this path.
Bryndis 41:48
That's okay, because I think this is really good, because it really leads into so many other things as like, looking at the there really is that need for pipeline. And you look at, you know, the schools that are, you know, doing training and stuff like that, but they're still, you know, with flight hours, with ensure security, like all of those factors lead into, you know, our pipeline,
Greg 42:18
Absolutely, And there's data that shows this. And I mentioned my wife a couple of times, Amy Spowart and she used to run the National Aviation Hall of Fame. She actually now runs the National Aeronautic Association. So my board chair made me retire so he could hire her, because she's so much better at it. But she was on the FAA Women in Aviation advisory board that was formed in 2019, I think, in the Trump administration, reported in the Biden administration. And there's all kinds of data and evidence in there that shows that their focus was women. But there's similar data for African Americans, for example, in the US that young girls don't see themselves in that because they don't see a lot of women, you know, and on the flight deck or doing these other things. And women who are interested in and get in it often leave because the policies aren't family friendly. Or, you know, people might make comments about women having to use uniforms designed for men. But if you're a mechanic working on an engine, there's a safety issue with that. There's certainly a comfort issue if you're a pilot on a 10 hour flight, you know, dressed in a uniform made for someone like me, right? That's not a good thing. And also things like harassment and, you know, these kinds of other things that happen. So people are leaving. And aviation can't grow that way. Frankly, there aren't enough people who look like me to keep it going.
Bryndis 43:52
Yeah, well, that's so interesting I think, with the uniforms or the different pieces that you wouldn't normally think of, that could be barriers in ways that wouldn't be a bit of a surprise.
Greg 44:05
Yeah, you know, you can just go right through, you know, uniforms are women who are, you know, breastfeeding, being able to pump, and so forth, all the way to the kind of comments that are made. Are they? You know, the way women are often treated in this industry. And I hardly know a single woman in this industry who's been in it for any length of time who hasn't had some kind of comment made or or, you know, some have been touched in a way that they didn't want to be and they're going to leave. And, you know, it's not just people my age or whatever. I have twin sons, who are about to turn 38 and their wives are a couple years younger than them, and millennials, and they might give it a try, like my daughter's in law, that they're not in aviation, but they might give it a try, but the first time somebody did or said something, they're out. They're not going to stick around. They're not going to say, I like aviation so much. I'm gonna not pay attention to this hand on my knee or this comment that somebody made to me. They're just gonna leave. My stepdaughters, who are, you know, college age, basically early 20s. And in their early 20s, that generation is almost looking for ways to be offended if I could say it that way, and so they're not going to even consider it. And so we have to understand where these future workers are coming from and change things. And I think more people who look like me have to say this, because, you know, right now it's Oh yeah, I'm going to use words that are, that are going to, you know, the I mean them is sarcastic, but, oh, it's just all the girls thing. They're going to get together, and the girls are going to complain or whatever, and, and, oh, it's just those, you know, minorities or whatever, these gay people or whatever. And, no, it's, it's all of us, and we have to, we have to figure this out. And so it's probably going to take more old white guys like me, you know, saying some more of these things.
Bryndis 46:05
Well, and every person having a voice in this discussion is, is how things change?
Greg 46:12
Well, I think even more than environmental issues and all, I think the human capital issues, the sustainability issue, and we can't sustain this in this industry right now, with the pipeline the way it is, we have to fill the pipeline with talented people who can ultimately achieve the qualifications, like you talked about before you have to be qualified to have these jobs, achieve the qualifications.
Bryndis 46:38
So one of the things we were talking about is kind of with, you know, with the World Air Sports Federation, and just the aeronautiques and the different types. So there was paragliding, there's, you know, do you do anything with drones? Or,
Greg 46:54
Yeah, we have an air modeling commission, and drones are part of that. So there's an international sporting competition held the year after the Summer Olympics every four years, called the World Games. And it's basically sports from federations that are not part of the Olympic games that can compete and show themselves off. So FAI, the organization I'm president of, is recognized by the International Olympic Committee, and it's part of that whole world. And so this year the World Games are in China, and there's going to be drone racing.
Bryndis 47:27
Okay I was just about to ask where, when and where it was going to be this year, so.
Greg 47:31
Yeah, it's going to be in August. The opening ceremonies are the seventh of August, and the first couple days of drone racing. And there are a number of competitions throughout the year for drones, we've been approached by some people who are working on this advanced Air Mobility stuff, you know, this small sort of quad copters, whatever you want to call them, that they want to have 30 people back and forth from one place to another part of the world you live in. Would be a great place for that, you know, that technology, I think to take hold, oh, yeah, probably better there than, like, New York City or Washington, where the airspace is just too complicated. But, you know, there are lots of those kind of things that they're also good ways to get kids interested, because a lot of kids like these drones, and you can do it virtually, and so forth and so, you know, trying to keep keep pace with all this, you know, new sports. It's not just the traditional ones, but new sports as well.
Bryndis 48:26
Well, I was mentioning this kind of thing a little bit yesterday, and the server, his eyes just lit up, and he was like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Greg 48:38
Think about it too. You've got these kids who, you know, probably weren't going to play basketball because of football, because of size, or whatever. You know, size has nothing to do with size, gender, all those things have nothing to do with whether you can fly a drone or not. And it's really hard, you if you watch the if anybody ever offers me a chance to fly one, I'm just going to say no, because I probably destroy the thing, you know, is it just watching what they do, oh yeah, and everything else, and, you know, so I think it's, it's an exciting development.
Bryndis 49:13
Well, I'm kind of reminded, years ago, in like 2011 we had an airships conference, and in Seattle, and there were people at the conference, and they were talking about how they wanted to actually do an airship race around the world. And they had plans for those kinds of things.
Greg 49:35
Well. And that's, you know, they always said when I was at NAA now FAI if you do these things, whether it's a sport competition or whether it's an airplane record, or anything else that we do that we recognize, and you know, we have the original dossier from Neil Armstrong being the first person to walk on the moon in our offices, being the first person in space, and all these things. And we do these things and recognize these achievements. It not only shows people that these things are happening, but it also gives incentive to others to do better. And so aviation continues to advance and evolve technologically and otherwise, because we do these things. And one of my favorite quotes from I love presidential quotes and that kind of thing. When you know President Kennedy talked about, you know, we're going to go to the moon and all that, not because it's easy, but because it's hard, and because it'll test our limits. It'll create, you know, it'll expand what we think we can do and so forth. And that's what a lot of this is all about.
Bryndis 50:41
Well, it also reminds me a little bit in that quote of everyone at NASA knowing what their job was, like, everyone from every department, from someone you know, the janitorial staff to you know, you know everyone, the commission of my job is to get a man on the moon.
Greg 51:03
Well, I never met Neil Armstrong. He was a friend of my wife's, and, you know, but she would tell me all the time that he said, you know, there were 300,000 people up there with me. You know that I didn't get there on my own, and he often talked about that in public. And I know he, you know, in conversations with Amy, he would say it and yeah, it's, it was a great really pulling together of everybody to do something. You see that happening in aviation all the time. It's exciting.
Bryndis 51:34
Yeah, if you're talking to someone kind of starting in their career, what advice would you give them?
Greg 51:40
Follow your passion. And oddly enough, whatever you're passionate about today may not be what you're passionate about in the future, and sometimes a passion will find you like it did me. You know, if you're 23 years old, don't worry about what you're going to be doing when you're 68, worry about what you want to do next. Try to put, you know, learn as much as you can, try to get yourself in that position, especially for young people, millennials and Gen Z, I'll tell I would tell them, what I told my own kids and step kids, people my age are going to be skeptical about whether you want to work hard, whether you want to listen, whether you can write. If you prove them wrong, and you can work hard, listen and write, you can do all kinds of great things. So do those things, and all you know, your job that you get when you're 23 is not going to determine where you're going to be at the you know, at the end of your working career-
Bryndis 52:37
Very much. So there's a lot that can happen in between.
Greg 52:41
So, and if you're, if you're in aviation, if you want to get an aviation I hate to say it like this, but with all the, you know, junk that's being said here in the US in the last two weeks by people in high positions, about dei and all that, and if you are, you know, if you're not a white male, but if you're a woman, if you're black, if you're gay or whatever, try not to get discouraged, because at the end of the day, you're not going to get hired because of those characteristics. You have to earn it, right? So just, just keep moving forward. Earn it. Show everybody, I think, hopefully it will add to their determination, not detract from it.
Bryndis 53:25
Exactly, no, I completely agree. And the more that you can keep on just trying, the better. So I've really enjoyed this conversation. I think we could keep on going, and there's so much, much more that we could talk about too. So thank you so much.
Greg 53:41
Absolutely. Yeah, well, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. It's great to reconnect with you.
Bryndis 53:49
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