ARSA 2013 Annual Repair Symposium

March 28, 2013
With 230 attendees the global repair station industry was well represented.

Sarah MacLeod welcomed everyone on Thursday, March 21st in her usual spirited style. Ms. MacLeod as most of you know is executive director and a founder of the Aeronautical Repair Station Association. Throughout the day ARSA staff, industry representatives, and regulators provided updates to the membership regarding recent ARSA activities on the legislative and regulatory fronts, rulemaking updates, along with perspectives from EASA and CASA representatives.  

John Hickey, Deputy Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety with the FAA, addressed the ARSA membership making several interesting comments worth repeating. Mr. Hickey shared, “We are in some very difficult times” and went on to describe how sequestration will recast regulators, regulations, FAA oversight, and FAA services provided to industry. He commented the FAA will be pooling resources to address what he described as “the new norm” and went on to say sequestration cannot be viewed as a one-time event and the changes made to government agencies will continually be seen in the months, perhaps years ahead.

The Annual Repair Symposium began on Wednesday, March 20th when ARSA members had the opportunity to spend time on Capitol Hill where Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) spoke about the importance of political engagement and his efforts to educate the administration and lawmakers about the role general aviation plays across the country.

On the final day ARSA President Gary Fortner, vice president of quality control at Fortner Engineering, addressed the membership commenting on ARSA’s efforts to actively address key issues facing the industry. This was followed by FAA Administrator Michael Huerta addressing the group. The Administrator commented on the benefits to both FAA and industry when ideas are shared and the lines of communication are open on topics of rulemaking. One example was rulemaking committees and he specifically commented on the role of ARSA with the ARC on Consistency in Regulatory Interpretation; the ARC on airworthiness directives and the Safety Management Systems ARC.

My take-away from the symposium was the reinforcement of the importance of involvement with industry organizations. Regardless of your role in aviation, industry organizations exist for your benefit.