More than 160 aviation professionals attended the recent SWAAAE Annual Summer Conference in Santa Rosa, California. Sixteen industry presentations were conducted over the two-day schedule. 
Topics ranging from unmanned aircraft to legal issues were presented by aviation management and operations professionals, FAA and state representatives, consultants, and invited experts. Mead & Hunt was heavily involved in the planning and implementation of the conference through our involvement on the committee. Experts from Mead & Hunt presented on the some very timely and important topics: Jeffery Hartz, Senior Air Service Consultant, presented on commercial traffic success; Rose Agnew, National Practice Leader – Operations and Planning Aviation Services, spoke on project partnering, and Matt Dubbe, AIA, NCARB – Market Leader Architecture, on the “Net Zero” building approach.
We had a great keynote speaker in Jeff Jones, Republic Airways Vice President of Marketing and Planning. Mr. Jones provided an entertaining and educational history lesson of the airline industry and where Republic Airways fits within these lean times of high fuel prices. To put some of this in perspective, he made the statement that airline ticket prices are cheaper today than 30 years ago. That makes you think about how difficult it is for airlines to provide a service and yet turn a profit.
It wasn’t all work… there were several networking opportunities planned. A group toured wine country and stopped by two of our local vineyards. Our Sunday welcome reception was held at the historic Madrona Manor. Snoopy and Charlie Brown joined us at the Tuesday night event held at the brand new Vinejet Hangar located on the Charles M. Schulz – Sonoma County Airport. Each event had more than 130 very happy attendees.
New SWAAE board members elected or appointed included 1st Vice President Casey Denny, Phoenix Mesa Gateway; 2nd Vice President Eric Peterson, Santa Clara County; Directors Gladys Wiggins, Yuma International, Jon Stout, Sonoma County Airport, and Richard Smith, LA County; and Corporate Director Jon Faucher, Business Unit Leader - Aviation Service at Mead & Hunt.
A big “thank you” goes out to Jon Stout the conference committee chair and the Manager of the Charles M. Schulz – Sonoma County Airport, the conference committee, and the 25 sponsors and 17 exhibitors who all made this conference a huge success!
