Ed Bolen, president and CEO of NBAA
Attending every NBAA-BACE since 1995 has provided me with a quarter-century of cherished memories. The convention is always an amazing showcase of breathtaking new products and services. But my most profound memories are of the remarkable people who annually gather to celebrate all things business aviation.
Through the years, I have been blessed to find myself in the presence of icons and legends, including Neil Armstrong, Joan Garrett, the Tuskegee Airmen, Arnold Palmer, and Jeff Bezos. I have also had the joy of being surrounded by industry newcomers and veterans, volunteers who support humanitarian relief efforts, and students who yearn for a career in aviation.
One of my favorite NBAA moments took place last year. Magic Johnson was a featured speaker, and our team had been working for weeks to script a very tight opening program. When I introduced Magic, he briskly walked onto the stage, shook my hand, then jumped off the stage and started wandering through the audience, talking to people. He was completely off-script, and it was wonderfully unpredictable—all of us at NBAA went from being in control to just being along for the ride. At some point, Magic asked a random woman in the front row to stand up and get her picture taken with him. That random woman turned out to be aviation legend Martha King. Magic is about two feet taller than Martha, but both are absolute giants in their respective fields. It is a special picture and having the two Hall of Famers standing side-by-side brought down the house.
I could go on and on about special memories at NBAA. Here are three more stories that mean the world to me.
At the 2010 Convention in Atlanta, we had a very special ceremony. For the first time ever, we had a Day 2 opening session. As part of that session we had then-FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt present the FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award to Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, Arnold Palmer, Clay Lacy, and Russ Meyer. The award includes a lapel pin. Watching each of those epic individuals walk across the stage and be “pinned” by the Administrator was absolutely goosebump-inducing.
At the 2012 Convention in Orlando, NBAA recognized the Tuskegee Airmen with our highest honor, The Meritorious Service Award. George Lucas, who produced the award-winning movie Red Tails, was scheduled to be at the Orange County Convention Center to introduce the Tuskegee Airmen. A little more than 24 hours before the ceremony, we got a call from Lucas. He said that “something had come up,” and he would not be able to be with us in Orlando. However, he said he was on his way to a studio, where he would film an appropriate introduction for the airmen. He said he couldn’t talk about what had come up, but that he hoped when we learned about it, we would understand. George did indeed film a beautiful and heartfelt introduction that we played on the big screen as we presented our award. About an hour later, the news broke that—while we were presenting the Meritorious Service Award—George had closed a deal to sell LucasFilms to Disney for $4 billion. He and Bob Iger were together on dozens of news programs that day.
In 2015, we were in Las Vegas, and Dierks Bentley was set to be our keynote speaker. The night before the show opened I saw Dierks at a reception. He told me that he had been working hard on his speech, but that he was nervous because he had never stood at a podium and talked to a crowd. He was used to singing, not speaking. I tried not to act surprised, but it was a little concerning to learn that our keynote speaker had zero public speaking experience. Of course, when the curtain rose, Dierks was absolutely brilliant—one of the best speakers we’ve ever had. Turns out, he made a last-minute decision in the green room not to read the speech he had spent weeks writing. Instead, he just walked out and spoke from the heart about what being a pilot meant to him. His passion and emotion reverberated throughout the crowd. He was a smash hit.
