UNITED STATES
Motion 2: The Budget & Finance Committee is asking the Board to approve the current Treasurer, CEO and President to have signing authority for financial matters for NAAA.
Communications & Public Relations Committee Matt Regier, Committee Vice Chair, presented the committee report. The committee discussed the events NAAA will be exhibiting at in 2022, including Ag Day on the Mall on March 21-22, where the association will have a helicopter and the 100th anniversary timeline; AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis., July 2531, and the Aviation Education & Career Expo in Leesburg, Va., Nov. 4. The 100th anniversary book has been a success with more than 650 copies sold. Several members have purchased copies and donated them to schools, libraries, and their state Departments of Agriculture. The committee recommends that members purchase copies of Agriculture’s Air Force and share them locally. The committee discussed Agricultural Aviation magazine and other NAAA communication mediums and how different generations obtain their information and news. The committee had a long discussion regarding the potential for an NAAA podcast; questions will be asked about this in the upcoming communications services survey. The committee discussed the communications services survey, which will be sent in mid-March. NAAA is conducting this survey to determine who members think the association’s main audience should be (public or the industry), what communications mediums are preferred (print, digital, video, podcast, etc.) and how to best deliver and reach them with the association’s messaging.
Convention Committee Lynn Justesen, Committee Co-Chair presented the committee report. Regarding the 2021 Ag Aviation Expo, both attendees and exhibitors were happy with Savannah and continue to enjoy traveling to the city. Financially, the expo was positive for NAAA due to the three large auction donations from Pratt & Whitney Canada, Darrel & Deb Mertens and Boyd Morgan. There were 1,540 attendees and exhibitors and 142 paying exhibitors. The 2022 Ag Aviation Expo will take place in Knoxville, Tenn., Dec. 5-8. We will have five different hotels in different price points around different areas of downtown Knoxville, all within B 6 | agairupdate.com
four blocks of the convention center. The room block links will be released to members in the next couple of weeks. The Kickoff Breakfast speaker will be Captain Scott Kelly, the astronaut who spent one year in space and was also a fighter pilot. For the General Session, we will hire Dr. Stan Musick to speak about medicals in the industry and Michelle Miller, the Farm Babe, who will speak about effective advocating for agriculture and the industry. No motions for the board.
Governing Documents Committee Ray Newcomb, Committee Chair, presented the committee report. The committee reviewed board member term limits and it was decided to keep the current Bylaws for term limits as is. The Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation were reviewed by the committee. No motions for the board.
Government Relations Committee Damon Reabe, Committee Chair, presented the committee report. The committee discussed FIFRA re-registration. He stated that it was encouraging to hear from EPA during the morning General Session and their review of tier three inputs that NAAA has been requesting of EPA during risk assessments. He said NAAA staff have worked tirelessly on this subject matter and they have gotten to where there is standardized language they’re using for re-registration of pesticides and it is very workable language. Occasionally we deal with challenges, such as paraquat last year, with reregistrations, and the association still worked out a better result on that active ingredient’s reregistration. The committee discussed registrants and facilitating labeling. Sarah Hovinga with Bayer CropScience attended the meeting, and she was very helpful with her comments. Jim Perrin, Damon Reabe and staff will have meetings with registrants about more communications with the industry and EPA because oftentimes the registrants don’t know what to ask for with labeling, which is an area where NAAA can continue to assist. Since the EPA risk assessments will happen, the registrant community is interested in putting time and effort in with NAAA on this subject matter. ➤
