Chairman’s Message: CJP Continues Growing to Become a Stronger and More Responsive Association

by CJP Chair Randy Broiles

Here’s a brief, mid-year update during a busy CJP year as we ramp back-up our member dinners and regional events, post-pandemic while continuing to work Safe to Land, FOQA and numerous other safety and advocacy opportunities.

CJP STAFF

We have four full-time staff including Trent as our CEO, Cheryl as our COO, Liz as our Special Projects Manager and David as our Director of Programs and Safety Education. Combined, they provide a strong and healthy mix of talent and experience. Two individuals have years of experience with CJP and two provide a fresh, enthusiastic and energetic perspective…along with strong IT and social media skills! I was reminded how fortunate CJP is to have this particular mix of bright, committed talent in early June when we were all in the same room together.

The CJP Staff, led by Trent, completed an intensive 1.5 days together building on the board’s strategy session in February. CJP Board Vice Chair Mitch Januszewski and I joined them for some of this work as they build on each other’s strengths, bring out each other’s best and focus on sustainably delivering our long term CJP Mission (Safety, Interactions, Advocacy and Aviation Community Service), annual CJP Objectives as well as serve CJP members. They candidly discussed improvement opportunities, each other’s roles & responsibilities, and CJP opportunities & threats. They closed by developing specific team action plans to execute and hold each other accountable as well as provide updates to the CJP executive committee and board. It was a high energy, intensive and productive 1.5 days!

We also have several world-class, part-time staff members, including Charlie Precourt and Neil Singer (CJP Safety Committee), the Alberts team (events coordination), Rob Finfrock (newsletter editor) and Jonathan Pitcher (IT support.)

CJP BOARD

One of the outcomes of our February board strategy session was to broaden our connectivity with other select, key GA organizations who may be working common GA challenges and threats. The CJP board currently benefits from three external, non-voting directors including Steve Sperley and Tracy Leopold, both with Textron Aviation, and Creighton Scarpone with Garmin.

Our CJP By-laws allow for up to four external directors. Your board approved adding NBAA’s Senior Vice President of Strategy, Marketing and Innovation, and former CJP CEO, Andrew Broom as an external director effective July 1, 2022.  We expect Andrew will bring a valuable external perspective on multiple GA issues to our CJP board discussions including insurability and aviation regulatory threats, among others. Join me in welcoming Andrew to the CJP board! You’ll likely see him at our Austin Annual Convention.

In addition, we will have at least one CJP owner member board vacancy this Fall. The board’s preferred process is to recommend potential board candidates to voting members who have participated actively on CJP board committees or otherwise demonstrated their willingness to devote time and/or resources for the benefit of members. That said, as always, those owner members who are interested in serving CJP are encouraged to advise anyone on the CJP board, or full-time CJP staff members, of their interest in serving on our board.

INTERACTIONS

Speaking of Austin, the CJP team is actively working details for our 2022 annual convention. Expect registration to be available this month. Our events team, led by Liz working with the Alberts team, is making many significant changes and improvements to past conventions. Without spoiling surprises, here are a few teasers:

• We’ve engaged ShowTec to professionally deliver our set designs and audio/video needs. ShowTec is owned by CJP member, and Mustang owner, Jonathan Martin and located in southern California. The company has a long track record of providing similar services to large, dynamic gatherings and we’re thrilled to be working with them this year.
• Liz has formed and is working with a small Companions Committee to supercharge the experience for companions who attend the Austin convention.
• We’ve separated the Textron Aviation concert from our annual live and silent auctions.  Your convention feedback was helpful. We were trying to do too much on our Friday night gala.
• We’ve reintroduced a helpful, user friendly convention app that should fully integrate the entire CJP convention experience including schedules, maps, silent auctions, attendees, photos, etc.

For those that were unable to attend, our Park City ski and Sonoma County wine & food regional events were both terrific and intimate which received glowing feedback from attendees. Future member dinners as well as all CJP events can be found on the events page of CJP’s website.

AVIATION COMMUNITY SERVICE

Finally, to those 60-plus CJP owner members who volunteered their time, money and Citations to support the Special Olympics in Orlando this month, the entire CJP board and staff offer a warm, heart-felt “Thank You!” Aside from providing a safe, memorable form of transportation for athletes and their coaches, they’re leading the way as proud examples of American generosity.

Cindy and I look forward to seeing many of you at upcoming member dinners and our Austin annual convention! Fly safely in the meantime.