Program Chairman
At the program's inception EAA decided to recruit a well-known person to act as Chairman and raise the profile of the program. The program's founding chairman was actor Cliff Robertson who served in that capacity from 1992 to 1994. Robertson was succeeded in 1994 by retired USAF General and test pilot Chuck Yeager, the first person to intentionally fly faster than the speed of sound. Yeager stepped down as chairman in 2004 and, in March 2004, actor and pilot Harrison Ford became Chairman of the Young Eagles program. Ford has flown more than 300 Young Eagles in several airplanes. Ford finished his five-year term in 2009.
In September 2009, Captain Chesley Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles who became famous in the US Airways Flight 1549 Hudson River ditching on 15 January 2009, were named as the program's new co-chairmen.
Read more about this topic: Young Eagles
Famous quotes containing the words program and/or chairman:
“The cowboy ... is well on his way to becoming a figure of magnificent proportions. Bowlegged and gaunt, he stands as the apotheosis of manly perfection. Songs, novels, movies, magazines, and operettas have made the least inquiring of us well acquainted with his extraordinary courage, unfailing gallantry, and uncanny skill with gun or lariat. The farmer, meanwhile, sits stolidly on his tractor, bereft of romance and adventure.”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“You know, when these New Negroes have their convention—that is going to be the chairman of the Committee on Unending Agitation. Race, race, race!... Damn, even the N double A C P takes a holiday sometimes!”
—Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965)