AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2013 - 30

BRIEFING

MEMBERSHIP

Fuller to step down as
AOPA president and CEO
Departure set for later this year
AOPA PRESIDENT CRAIG FULLER has
announced he will step down from his
position and from the Board of Trustees.
He will remain in his current role until
a successor is ready to assume the position. The board will conduct a national
search for his successor. Fuller, who took
office January 1, 2009, is only the fourth
president of AOPA since the association’s
founding nearly 75 years ago.
Fuller, 62, made a five-year commitment to AOPA when he was appointed
president. “I have flown since age 17, and
flying has been part of my life ever since.

VIDEO EXTRA View

a video interview
with AOPA President
Craig Fuller.

I will always be grateful to the AOPA
Board of Trustees for having given me the
opportunity to serve the GA community
and AOPA’s 385,000 members in a leadership position,” said Fuller. “It has been a
privilege to work with my colleagues on a
strong set of initiatives that have built on
the decades of hard work by AOPA trustees
and members of the management team. ”
“During his more than four years as
president of AOPA, Craig served nobly
and professionally. He has advocated
strongly on behalf of the GA community
in Washington, built bridges with the other

aviation associations, improved member
communications and generated promising ideas for tomorrow,” said Bill Trimble,
chairman of the AOPA Board of Trustees.
“We recognize the importance of finding a
leader who can continue to inspire all of us
in these challenging times. We are focused
on finding a leader who shares our vision
and convictions as well as the talent and
capabilities necessary to achieve our goals.”
Trimble, who has chaired the AOPA Board
of Trustees since 2005, said the board has
formed a search committee and retained
an executive search firm.

A LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Fellow AOPA members,
AOPA has begun the search for the fifth
president of the association. We are
beginning a national search for a leader
who will continue to lead the fight for
general aviation in Washington, D.C., in
your home state, and at your airport.
The Board of Trustees, a group of volunteers who all fly regularly for business
and recreation, has begun the process to
identify our next president. The natural
question arises: Who are we looking
for? The selection process is not an easy
one; unlike most corporate searches, we
must narrow the candidates to include
only pilots. The candidate must be an
outgoing, passionate aviator who believes in the critical value GA brings to
our country and citizens. The candidate
also must be an experienced businessperson who can lead and grow the
world’s largest aviation association. The
candidate must be able to articulate and
fight for our cause and beliefs in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals.
The candidate needs to fight for our
rights with an ever-burdening regulatory

30 | AOPA PILOT May 2013

structure that has grown substantially
since the tragic events of 9/11. Where
the FAA was once the primary regulator, we now have agencies we did not
work with before 9/11—like the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal
Communications Commission, and the
Environmental Protection Agency—that
are introducing policies or considering
proposals that will limit our freedom to
fly…and this does not include state and
local authorities now positioning themselves as “protectors” of the public from
GA aircraft.
Over the past several years, Craig’s
seasoned Washington hand helped
build the GA Caucus—the single most
important bulwark against the current
shenanigans on Capitol Hill; AOPA has
continued to successfully beat back user
fees at the federal level; we have fought
against state-level GA tax increases
and won numerous tax cuts that, when
combined, save our members more
than $100 million a year in state taxes
and fees; and we actively support local
airport efforts through the work of seven
full-time regional managers and more

than 2,500 Airport Support Network
volunteers across the country. We’ve
been focusing efforts on the threat of
massive FAA budget cuts that could
close more than 200 control towers,
restrict weather and flight services, allow
the navigation system to deteriorate, and
derail aircraft certification.
Avgas prices have risen from an
average of $4.44 per gallon in 2007 to
$6.62 today. For most, new single-engine aircraft are prohibitively expensive
because of the ever-increasing costs
of certification and declining production levels, thereby greatly increasing
the overhead costs per aircraft. Here at
AOPA, we are not immune. We draw our
membership from the pilot population,
which having stood at 827,000 in 1980,
is down to 610,000 today.
As many of you know, AOPA’s revenues are derived from three primary
sources: membership dues; advertising in AOPA Pilot magazine and other
media properties; and revenue from
products and services such as the credit
card, Pilot Protection Services, and
insurance services. Membership dues
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2013

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