Experimental Aircraft Association
The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is an international organization of aviation enthusiasts based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Since its inception it has grown internationally with over 175,000 members and nearly 1,000 chapters worldwide.
The organization is overseen by a Chairman, a President, a CEO and a Board of
Directors. Paul Poberezny assumed the duties of President and CEO at the 1953
founding. In 1989 he assumed the (newly-created) position of Chairman of the
Board, and his son Tom Poberezny became President/CEO. In March 2009 Paul
Poberezny resigned and the Board voted to elevate Tom Poberezny to Chairman of
the Board. At AirVenture 2010, it was announced that Rod Hightower would succeed
Tom Poberezny as President of the organization, effective September 2010.
Hightower resigned on 22 October 2012 "effective immediately", directly after a
Board of Directors meeting during which former Cessna Chairman, President and
CEO Jack J. Pelton was elected Chairman. Hightower indicated he was resigning to
spend more time with his family and would relocate from Oshkosh to St. Louis.
Pelton will oversee the organization during the hiring process for a new CEO but
has not been named President or CEO in the interim. In response to questions
about Hightower's resignation, Mac McClelland, EAA vice president of
publications, stated that it was due to Hightower failing to relocation himself
from his home in St. Louis to EAA headquesters in Oshkosh, as the board had
expected him to. McClelland said, "I know there's all kinds of complaints, but
that's not it. [The residency] was the unsolvable requirement. The board sees
the president/CEO living in the Fox Valley as essential to the mission."
Local chapters may be formed whenever ten or more EAA members reside in a given
area.
Chapters are encouraged to meet monthly. The first chapter meeting occurred at
Flabob Airport in California, with noted aircraft designer and builder Ray Stits
presiding.
The EAA was founded in 1953 by veteran aviator Paul Poberezny along with other
aviation enthusiasts. The organization began as more or less a flying club. Paul
Poberenzy explains the nature of the organization's name, "Because the planes we
flew were modified or built from scratch, they were required to display an
EXPERIMENTAL placard where it could be seen on the door or cockpit, so it was
quite natural that we call ourselves the "Experimental Aircraft Association".
Homebuilding is still a large part of EAA, but the organization has grown over
the years to include almost every aspect of aviation and aeronautics.
EAA's first home was in the basement of the Poberezny home. In the early 1960s,
the association's first headquarters was built in the Milwaukee suburb of
Franklin. That was the headquarters for the organization until 1983, when EAA
combined its headquarters and fly-in site in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The EAA
Aviation Center also includes the EAA AirVenture Museum, with more than 100
aircraft on display.
replica of "Spirit of Saint Lewis"
In 1953 the Experimental Aircraft Association released a two-page newsletter named The Experimenter. The newsletter was written and published by founding members Paul and Audrey Poberezny along with other volunteers. The newsletter transitioned to a magazine format and was renamed Sport Aviation and became a membership benefit. The Experimenter name lives on, however, in an online magazine specifically for amateur-built and light plane enthusiasts that debuted in 2012.
In 2010, the United States' national aeromodeling organization, the Academy of
Model Aeronautics, was involved in negotiations with the EAA homebuilt aviation
organization, that resulted in a "memorandum of understanding" that is intended
to encourage collaboration between the two American-based sport aviation
organizations, in developing, in the words of the AMA's then-President Dave
Mathewson, "the creation of new concepts that will promote aviation, both
full-scale and modeling, as a perfect family recreational and educational
activity"
Text from Wikipedia
Air Academy Lodge
