NBAA's 2018 Leadership Conference comes to Southern California later this month powered by the theme "Resiliency: Thriving Through Change" and with a revamped format that aims to increase attendee participation. This year's edition, to be held February 26 to 28 in San Diego, continues the event's mission of providing opportunities for current and future leaders from across the business aviation spectrum to grow.
"It's no secret that we have been going through wild swings over the past decade, both in business aviation and the world in general," said Dustin Cordier, managing partner of jetAviva and the event's co-chair. "Limping along and waiting for normal to return is not an option. We're not going back to normal. This is the new normal."
Seeking to help attendees tackle this reality head-on, Cordier and co-chair Julie Goodridge, national sales manager of Jet Aviation, keyed on resiliency as a core tenet of business aviation leaders, and built the conference's two-day program around it. The program's sessions cover thriving through change; using visualization to achieve success; bouncing back from tough times; and nurturing a resilient spirit. New this year are two workshops that will help attendees develop plans they can take home and implement—one on emotional mastery and the other on the concept of "living big."
"Beyond the conference's resiliency theme, if there is one common thread among the six experts we have speaking, it's that solving big problems starts with self-growth," Cordier explained. "That means taking a deep dive into what you see in the mirror. Our hope is that the two workshops will help everyone start down that path."
On February 26, NBAA will also hold a pre-conference event PDP course, "Regulatory Compliance and Documentation."
Cyrus Sigari, co-founder and president of jet sales brokerage JetAviva, knew about NBAA's annual leadership conference; he'd approved numerous requests for subordinates to attend. But until this year's gathering in San Diego, he'd never experienced the event himself. Now?
Adjusting to the New Normal