During a recent trip to Long Beach, California to attend NAAA’s fall board of directors meeting, I was doing some writing in the hotel lobby. Someone walked up and asked could they sit down beside me. It was Bruce Hubler of Valley Air Service based in Idaho. With him was his pilot, Joe Coppick. “Sure,” I said. “Take a seat”.
“I bet you thought you’d come down here and get some work done and here we come along,” said Bruce. Well, not actually, I explained. If I had really expected to work, I’d have stayed in the room writing. However, I preferred the company of others. I went on to tell Bruce and Joe that the upcoming week would be the busiest of the year for AgAir Update and myself. I had approximately five days to crank out three editorials (Latin and Show Guide editorials and this one), along with no less than three articles, of which one was the cover story for November.
For me, writing is a labor of love, mostly labor. Not being a trained writer, I find it challenging to sit down to write; one of the more important and essential jobs I have at AgAir Update. Typically, I end up procrastinating until I am backed up against a pending deadline, then I go into overdrive. If I had flown my Thrush in the same manner, it would have taken no less than three aircraft to do the work of one!
If you are reading this, either online or holding the print edition, then you know I got it all done, despite putting off my duties until the last minute. The wintertime can become the same scenario for an ag-operator, maybe not so much for the ag-pilot. You just completed a stressful season, long days, very little rest and now it is over, for the most part. One of the last things you want to think about is getting ready for next season.
Think about it, you should. It will be much more practical for you to begin making those delayed repairs and updating equipment earlier than later. When you wait, you find yourself under pressure, again, to get the job at hand done and that often is not the best way to complete a task. I know, I deal with it every month, writing and meeting deadlines.
Back to the NAAA board meeting; as I was reading through the “board book”, a preparatory document for the meeting, I came upon a page with a list of names. It was the names of the then current board of directors for NAAA in its recently adopted Constitution and Bylaws, circa 1984. As I looked over the names, many dead and none any longer active in the NAAA, I came across one name that stood out, Bill Lavender. Gee, thirty years of attending NAAA board meetings with darn near a 100% attendance record for the spring and fall meetings. I think I missed one of each of those meeting in 1986.
When I think about the NAAA from those days and compare it to today, it amazes me how much has changed. I can say improved, but not without giving credit to those that came before the current board. Their wisdom helped to shape NAAA into an effective association of its peers. We in this industry of flying agricultural aircraft are fortunate to have the NAAA, a viable organization looking after the interests of all.
I did not intend to get into a pro-NAAA dissertation in my editorial. Remember, I am not a trained writer and this is where I ended up. Know, that without NAAA there would be no Professional Aerial Applicators Support System (PAASS), no annual convention, probably federal fuel taxes and who knows, maybe not even an industry, along with numerous other benefits provided by NAAA to our industry. I am not going to ask those of you who are not members to join. I shouldn’t have to!
Until next month,
Keep Turning…
