NBAA has selected MedAire founder Joan Sullivan Garrett and former Gulfstream Aerospace executive Preston Henne as this year’s recipients of the association’s highest honors. Garrett will receive the Meritorious Service to Aviation Award, which recognizes “extraordinary lifelong contributions to aviation.” Henne will be honored with the John P. (Jack) Doswell Award, which recognizes “lifelong individual achievement on behalf of and in support of the aims, goals and objectives of business aviation.”
The awards will be presented during the 2017 NBAA Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition, to be held from October 10 to 12, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
NBAA called Garrett an industry pioneer in critical-care medical response. She had served as a critical-care flight nurse and chief medical officer early in her career. During an emergency helicopter evacuation flight in remote area of Arizona, Garrett realized that advanced technologies, improved medical kits and crew training could help save more lives in remote areas, NBAA said. This led her to found MedAire in 1985. The firm provides medical education, training and equipment and medical and logistics expertise for passengers and crew in the air, on land and at sea.
Garrett served as CEO of MedAire until 2006, and had become a renowned advisor and expert on health and safety-related issues. Her testimony before Congress is credited with helping to lead to a regulation requiring U.S. airlines to carry automated external defibrillators and enhanced emergency medical kits.
She also is a 30-plus-year NBAA member. During that time, Garrett served as chair and vice chair of the association’s Associate Member Advisory Council and a member of the board of directors.
"In founding MedAire and advancing the practice of utilizing cutting-edge medical care for those even in the most remote locations, Joan has made a lasting difference to all those who travel by air and sea," said NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen. "Her contribution to the health and safety of the flying public and everyone in the aviation industry has been groundbreaking."
Henne retired in 2013 as senior v-p of programs, engineering and test at Gulfstream Aerospace, following a 44-year career in the aviation industry. At Gulfstream, he steered product program management, engineering, flight operations and advanced design and technology development. While at Gulfstream, Henne led design, development, test and certification of the Collier Trophy-winning Gulfstream V. His organization additionally developed the Gulfstream G150, G280, G450, G550 and G650. The G550 and G650 also captured the Collier Trophy, the National Aeronautic Association’s honor for the greatest achievement in aeronautics and astronautics in America.
Henne joined Gulfstream in 1994 after serving with McDonnell Douglas for 25 years. There, he steered the aerodynamic design of the wing on the C-17 military airlifter. He later was chief design engineer for the MD-80 airliner and became vice president and general manager of the MD-90 airliner program.
"Preston Henne's visionary work to advance the technology of flight has been nothing short of extraordinary," said Bolen. "His career-long focus on design and engineering has produced some of the world's most innovative developments in aviation."
