The 2024 NBAA Maintenance Conference launched this morning with a welcome message from NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen and an inspirational keynote by former U.S. Navy Blue Angels commanding officer Greg Wooldridge. The three-day event recognizes the critical contributions of those who work in the business aviation maintenance segment and includes educational opportunities and networking opportunities with exhibitors and sponsors.
Conference chair Nate Dietsch and vice chair Brett Semple highlighted winners of the maintenance scholarships generously donated by aviation training and other business aviation supporters. During this afternoon’s ice cream social, attendees were invited to meet the scholarship winners who traveled to Portland for the conference. Dietsch also highlighted the maintenance competition planned for tomorrow, which will be followed by an awards ceremony for the winning participants.
“This is an incredibly important conference,” Bolen said. “It’s an opportunity for people to grow and to develop and for us to attract people into the industry and for us to grow into the future. What we’re urging everybody in our community to do is to be engaged in telling the story about business aviation, to let people know that we are an industry that is looking to the future. [We’re] working hard to attract, develop, and retain the best and the brightest.”
Bolen introduced Jeff Helfrich (R-Oregon), minority leader of the Oregon House of Representatives and a pilot who was instrumental in opening an aviation maintenance technician school at Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles, Oregon. “He’s a great representative of what general aviation is all about,” Bolen said.
“We have an industry that is short of mechanics,” Helfrich said, “and we don’t have any [schools] east of the Cascades. In 2025, the hangar will be done so they’ll be able to do their coursework and everything that they need to do to get mechanics that you guys want to hire and get into the field and do the good job that they do as problem solvers.”
Helfrich encouraged the audience to engage with their legislators to help solve industry problems. “We’re always open to conversations,” he said. “We want to push the envelope so we can have better businesses to get people up into the air.”