2024 GWAO Honorees
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| Pete Bunce, President & CEO, GAMA (Bio) | Jennifer L. Homendy, Chair, NTSB (Bio) |
Pete Bunce, President & CEO, GAMA
In April 2005, Peter (Pete) Bunce became President and CEO of GAMA, which has North American headquarters in Washington, D.C. and European/Middle East headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. He and the GAMA staff travel worldwide engaging regulators, policymakers, and elected officials to promote general aviation and advance the interests of GAMA’s global membership of more than 140 airframe, avionics, engine, and component manufacturers, as well as the world’s leading business aviation maintenance, repair, and overhaul companies.
Pete retired from the United States Air Force in March 2005, with his last assignment as the Director of the Air Force Congressional Budget and Appropriations Liaison. During his 26-year Air Force career, Pete flew F-15s and A-10s, while commanding several large operational fighter units.
A Wisconsin native, Pete learned to fly as a teenager in the skies over southern Wisconsin. He entered the Air Force in 1979 as an honor graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. He received his master’s degree in International Affairs from Troy University in 1988 and was an International Affairs Fellow at Harvard University in 1996-97.
Pete is an active pilot with more than 7,500 hours in military fighter and training aircraft as well as civil piston, turboprop, and business jet aircraft. He holds an FAA airline transport certificate and seaplane rating, and serves on the board of directors of the Recreational Aviation Foundation, Veterans Airlift Command, and a trustee of the U.S. Air Force Academy Falcon Foundation. Pete is also a member of Federal Aviation Administration’s 13-member Management Advisory Council (MAC). Additionally, Pete serves as both the FAA’s NextGen Advisory Committee, MITRE Corporation’s Aviation Advisory Committee and the NASA Advisory Council Aeronautics Committee.
In May 2015, Pete organized the Arsenal of Democracy World War II Victory Flyover the U.S. Capitol Mall. More than 50 warbirds flew down Independence Avenue, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Allies Victory in Europe.
Pete was named the 2007 Aviation Industry Leader of the Year by the Living Legends of Aviation. In December 2009, he was awarded the ICAS Sword of Excellence, the air show industry’s premier annual award. In January 2010, he was inducted as one of the 70 Living Legends of Aviation. In 2022, he was inducted into the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame and the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) presented him with the Wesley L. McDonald Distinguished Statesman of Aviation Award. Pete and his wife Patty reside in Arlington, Virginia, and have six children.
Jennifer L. Homendy, Chair, NTSB
Jennifer L. Homendy [pronounced HAH-mendy] was sworn in as the 15th Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on August 13, 2021, after being nominated by the President and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. The NTSB is an independent federal agency charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States and significant events in other modes of transportation.
Chair Homendy is the agency’s chief executive, managing an annual budget of about $129.3 million and more than 411 full-time employees across the country, including the NTSB’s regional offices located in Anchorage, Alaska; Seattle, Washington; and Denver, Colorado. She is the fourth woman to serve as Chair since the agency was created in 1967.
Chair Homendy has used her national platform to advocate for the implementation of NTSB safety recommendations, including strategies to reverse the deadly epidemic of traffic deaths, which have surged since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Her work has been especially focused on protecting vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and people with disabilities.
As a vocal champion of the Safe System Approach, Chair Homendy speaks often about the need for a holistic approach to managing safety, preventing crashes and injuries, and saving lives on our nation’s roads — an approach that has proved successful in other transportation modes, including commercial passenger aviation.
Another of Chair Homendy’s priorities is to ensure the NTSB’s readiness to carry out its mission amid rapid technological advancement in all modes of transportation, including advanced driver assist systems, automated vehicles, commercial space transportation, uncrewed aircraft systems, advanced air mobility, supersonic aircraft, high-speed ground transportation, and clean energy sources to fuel vehicles, such as high-voltage lithium-ion batteries and hydrogen. She is pushing for measures that not only will save lives but preserve the public’s trust in proven lifesaving technologies, such as automatic emergency braking and forward-collision warning.
Chair Homendy is also focused on ensuring that commercial aviation in the United States continues to be held to the highest standards of safety. While a Member of the Board, Chair Homendy reviewed and debated recommendations that would ensure that the National Air Space continues to be the safest in the world and that lessons are learned from every fatality, injury, or near miss that the NTSB has investigated.
The investigations that guide her efforts include the 2017 near-collision in San Francisco, which put more than 1,000 people at imminent risk of serious injury or death; and the 2018 engine failure of Southwest 1380 that resulted in one passenger fatality.
Chair Homendy has served as the agency’s 44th Board Member since August 2018. She has debated and approved numerous investigation reports, provided expert testimony at the federal and state levels on a wide range of transportation safety issues, and launched with the NTSB “Go Team” on numerous investigations.
From 2004 to 2018, Chair Homendy served as the Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I Committee) of the U.S. House of Representatives. In that role, Chair Homendy was the most senior strategic advisor on safety and economic issues involving the rail industry and its employees and passengers. In addition, she was responsible for strategic advice regarding the safety of transporting oil and gas by pipeline, and transporting hazardous materials in all modes, including aviation.
Throughout her tenure on the T&I Committee, Chair Homendy successfully advocated for the inclusion of NTSB safety recommendations in relevant legislation. She was instrumental to ensuring that the 2008 reauthorization of rail programs included a requirement that positive train control (PTC) technology be installed on most of the U.S. railroad network — a safety milestone she was able to celebrate from her vantage point as an NTSB Board Member when it was fully implemented.
Following several high-profile transportation incidents involving the use of drugs and the rise of opioids use in the transportation sector, Chair Homendy led the T&I Committee’s 2018 multimodal, in-depth review of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) drug- and alcohol-testing program. The resulting report identified significant gaps in the program and made recommendations to USDOT and Congress to improve transportation safety.
