Dorette Kerr—the flight administration manager for John Deere Global Aviation Services and former chair of the NBAA Schedulers and Dispatchers Committee—received the association’s Schedulers and Dispatchers Outstanding Achievement and Leadership Award this week during the 2016 NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference in Tampa, Fla. The award recognizes individuals “who have shared their outstanding business aviation industry expertise, provided extraordinary service, exhibited leadership and made significant contributions to the scheduling and dispatching function.”

When she was chair of the S&D Committee in 2009 and 2010, Kerr worked to expand training opportunities through NBAA’s Professional Development Program (PDP), make operational material more accessible to NBAA’s S&D community and provide better support to smaller flight departments. After her tenure as chair, Kerr went on to co-found an S&D roundtable to create benchmarks and raise awareness of business aviation scheduling and dispatching as a career path. She is also passionate about establishing a mentoring program.

NBAA also awarded eight monetary scholarships and 20 training scholarships to S&D members. The monetary scholarships helped recipients attend this year’s conference, while the training scholarships were provided by various business aviation companies to assist recipients in furthering their education and advancing their careers as a scheduler and/or dispatcher.