Alexandria, VA, December 17, 2013 - The Flight Safety Foundation announced today that its current CEO and President, Kevin Hiatt, will be stepping down to take on a new role as IATA's top safety executive in February 2014. FSF Chair-elect Ken Hylander, the recently retired Senior Vice President of Safety, Security & Compliance at Delta Air Lines, will be taking on the additional role of Acting FSF CEO and President, pending an international executive search. In addition, the Foundation announced that Bill Bozin, who recently retired as Vice President of Safety and Technical Affairs at Airbus Americas, will be taking on the role of Acting Chief Operating Officer.
"We're very grateful and proud of Kevin's outstanding leadership at the Foundation," noted FSF Chair David McMillan, former head of EUROCONTROL and the UK Director General of Civil Aviation. "Our loss, however, is not only IATA's gain, but a real win-win for aviation safety, given our close partnership with IATA on a host of aviation safety priorities."
McMillan also expressed deep thanks and appreciation to Hylander and Bozin for agreeing to step into the CEO and COO roles, respectively, until an international search, conducted by Krauthamer & Associates, can be completed.
"The Foundation is coming off a superb year of contributions to aviation safety in a wide range of areas, particularly in gathering, sharing, analyzing, and protecting both accident and occurrence reporting, and in raising basic aviation risk standards," Hylander said. "We're excited to build on this success."
Prior to his safety leadership role at Delta, Hylander served as Vice President of Safety and Engineering at Northwest Airlines for 11 years, and previously worked at United Airlines in a variety of engineering roles. He served most recently as co-chair of the FAA/Industry Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST).
"We're indebted to Kevin," stated Bozin, "and look forward to continuing our partnership with IATA, ICAO, MITRE, and others, taking the Foundation to new heights in the coming years." Bozin previously served for over eight years as V.P. Safety and Technical Affairs at Airbus Americas, V.P. Safety and Regulatory Compliance at US Airways, Senior Director, Safety, at the Air Transport Association (now A4A), and over 25 years as a US naval aviator, retiring as Captain and Air Wing Commander.
Flight Safety Foundation is an independent, non-profit, international organization engaged in research, education, advocacy and publishing to improve aviation safety. The Foundation's mission is to be the leading voice of safety for the global aerospace community.
