Gulfstream parent company General Dynamics announced last month that Larry Flynn will succeed Joe Lombardo as president of the Savannah-based airframer, starting September 1.
Lombardo served not only as president of the jet maker since 2007 but also as executive vice president of General Dynamics’s aerospace group, and he will retain the latter title. “This will enable Mr. Lombardo to spend additional time ensuring that both Jet Aviation and Gulfstream Aerospace are focused on meeting their customers’ requirements,” a General Dynamics spokesman told AIN, noting that Lombardo, 63, would assume a supervisory role in both companies. The move also aligns the executive structure of the aerospace group to match that of General Dynamics’s other business groups, the spokesman said.
After the similarly unexpected announcement in June of the resignation of Jet Aviation president Peter Edwards, who had led the international aviation services provider since 2007, Lombardo assumed temporary leadership of the company until former Gulfstream CFO and senior vice president Daniel Clare assumed its presidency in July.
During General Dynamics’ second-quarter earnings call at the end of July, chairman and CEO Jay Johnson noted problems within Jet Aviation that affected the quarterly earnings for the company’s aerospace division. He specifically cited slowdowns in production output from Jet Aviation’s completions division and said that the company has taken “specific steps to reshape that business.”
Before this appointment, Flynn, 59, was Gulfstream’s senior vice president of marketing and sales, a role he held since 2008. Before that he had a successful seven-year stint as president of Gulfstream product support. He joined the company in 1995 as vice president of aircraft services, bringing more than 25 years of aircraft service facility experience to the business jet manufacturer.
Flynn earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in manpower management from the University of Kansas and serves on NBAA’s associate member advisory council.
“Larry Flynn has a broad base of operational and customer-focused experience that will serve him well as he leads Gulfstream into the future,” said Lombardo in announcing the appointment. “His direction of Gulfstream’s marketing and sales organization has given Larry exceptional insight into the needs of our increasingly international customer base. I’m confident that he will capitalize on that knowledge to enhance the company’s position as a global leader in business aviation.”
Flynn takes the reins at Gulfstream as the manufacturer enters the final stretch towards certification of its new ultra-long-range flagship G650, the largest and most expensive aircraft the company has ever built. According to General Dynamics’s Johnson, initial green deliveries of the twinjet (the flight testing of which was temporarily delayed by a fatal crash earlier this year) are still a strong possibility by the end of the year.
