President’s Perspective
Dave Brown, AMA President
I am pleased to announce that at its quarterly meeting on October 30, 2004, the AMA Executive Council (EC) voted unanimously to appoint Don Koranda as AMA’s new Executive Director (ED). Don brings to AMA nearly 30 years of experience in membership-association management and has been the president of the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) for the last six years.
Before serving as NAA president, Don spent 21 years with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) and was a vice president of that organization. During his tenure as NAA president, Don was designated NAA’s representative to the AMA EC, so he is not a complete outsider in terms of knowledge of AMA and aeromodeling.
Don’s experience and visibility within the aviation community will be valuable to AMA. I have high respect for Don and look forward to working with him for the advancement of AMA and aeromodeling.
Joyce Hager, who has done a terrific job as AMA’s ED for nine years, will remain an important part of the AMA staff, and her experience will continue to be valuable to AMA. Joyce has spoken to me and others during the past couple of years about her desire to be placed in a less stressful position, but one where her experience and talent would still be used.
The timing was right for us to take advantage of Don’s availability because he had announced his resignation as NAA’s president earlier in the year. Don wished to pursue a new challenge and, as it turns out, AMA will be that challenge. I have little doubt that Don will be up to anything that is presented to him.
I cannot take credit for this move since I remained in the background while others on the EC did most of the work, but I am thrilled that we were able to hire Don Koranda. Because I was a member of the NAA committee that searched for and hired Don’s replacement at NAA, I did not want any perception of conflict of interest. Only after the position at NAA was filled did I ask permission from retired Admiral Wes McDonald, the NAA chairman, to speak with Don about the AMA possibilities. Adm. McDonald encouraged me to do so, saying that he thought Don would make a great addition to the AMA staff. I probably did not need to ask permission, but I felt that it was wise to make sure that no one at NAA felt that AMA had usurped its employee.
As I am writing this, I have returned from NAA’s fall awards dinner where Adm. McDonald was presented the Henderson Award in recognition of his many years of service to aviation and his 11 years as the NAA chairman. Our participation in FAI goes through NAA, but the value of NAA to AMA has spread well beyond the FAI involvement. Adm. McDonald and Don Koranda have had much to do with that importance.
FAI Participation Rules
A question has arisen regarding participation of non‑U.S. citizens on U.S. World Championships teams. It is a complex issue. FAI rules state:
- People who represent a country must be either citizens of that country or residents of that country who have lived there for at least 185 days per year for the past three years.
- At least three years must have elapsed since a competitor has represented another country.
AMA has used the FAI rule as its requirement in the past, and people who have inquired were told that this was the requirement for U.S. team participation. A few people have been pushing for a change in our FAI policy that would require citizenship for all U.S. team programs. This will be a difficult subject to resolve; I’m not even sure this is a matter for AMA to decide. It could be an issue for NAA to decide and apply to all of the FAI teams going to World Championships—full-scale teams as well as aeromodeling teams.
Further complicating the decision is the issuance of sporting licenses, record attempts, etc. I don’t expect anything to happen quickly on this complicated issue. Much is at stake for those affected. Stay tuned.
Broadband over Power Lines (BPL)
The FCC has passed the new rules regarding Broadband over Power Lines (BPL). Despite our efforts to defeat them, they did include most of the limitations we wanted, so the effect on aeromodeling—while still unknown—is likely to be little or none. Assuming the BPL operators are operating within the rules, there should not be a big impact on aeromodeling.
Watch for future articles on this subject. For now, you can be assured that AMA and members of the Frequency Committee are watching closely.
Closing / Election
This could be my last column as your AMA president, depending upon the outcome of the election—AMA’s, not that one. Should it be my last column, I ask that you support the new AMA president in the same way you have supported me.
I know the people who are running against me well and I know that if elected either of them will do a good job on your behalf. It has been rewarding to have served as your president, and I will surely support the winner of the AMA election. (Actually, I will support the winner of that other election as well, but perhaps not quite as enthusiastically.)
Dave Brown AMA President dbrown@dbproducts.com
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
