Welcome

Welcome to our new website.  We hope you enjoy the fresh design and new features.  We plan to use this blog to keep you updated on a more consistent basis, on aviation related issues, our accomplishments and any information we feel will be important to you, our supporters.  You will hear from different voices – other board members, past scholarship recipients – and anyone else who has something relevant to say regarding The Foundation, or aviation as a whole.

And most of all, we want you to hear our opinions, and sometimes our frustrations on running a successful organization.  For example, up to this point we have had little support from corporate aviation.  There are 3768 aerospace companies in the United States.  If every company donated $10.00, we would easily be able to award the three scholarships a year we had planned to when we began this endeavor six years ago.  And as we all know, corporations benefit when they donate.  And although the pilot shortage has been temporarily fixed due to the retirement age being extended from 60 to 65 years of age, this is only a short-term solution.

If I didn’t believe in what The Foundation is doing, I would have quit a long time ago.  The Foundation takes up A LOT of time, and I recently went back to work part-time, plus I’m a single mom to a four year old and an eight year old.  But I think aviation is exciting.  And so did LeRoy.  He just really enjoyed his job.  And even with all the cutbacks the airlines have made that have affected the pilot’s income and benefits, he would have still loved to fly.  I’m sure he would have shared his colleagues’ frustration, but he wouldn’t have let that ruin the pleasure he had in doing his job.

The Foundation has not had great support from other pilots, which is an irony I have difficulty understanding.  I always think that if someone can afford to go to Starbucks a few times a week, a $20.00 donation once a year to a Foundation that supports young adults who want to have the pleasure of doing what you do for a living, is not a lot to ask.

But I will end on a positive note and say that I do appreciate everyone who has and continues to carry on LeRoy’s legacy through this Foundation.  This year has been exciting for us as our first two scholarship recipients (2003) have started their professional aviation careers, Mike as a navy pilot, and Sarah as a flight officer with Mesa Airlines.  Very cool!