In the absence of this year’s NBAA show that was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, AIN is publishing remembrances of past conventions from captains of the industry to you, our readers. The responses highlight how the annual event resonates throughout the industry. To read more, go to the NBAA Memories landing page.
Dave Franson, president and owner of Franson Consulting and president of the Wichita Aero Club
I have actually attended the show for 42 of my 46 years in the business aircraft community. I was even responsible for managing two of the annual NBAA conventions—in 1992 and 1993—while serving as the vice president of meetings and membership for the organization then headed by Jack Olcott. It’s hard to pick a favorite memory from all those events, and many of the memories run together and have blurred with the passage of time.
During my first NBAA with Cessna in 1975, I wanted to make a good impression. Of course, one of its hallmarks for most of its existence has been the fact that it’s a “suit-and-tie” show. It was important to look business-like at the business aircraft gathering. That’s why I went out a week before the convention in New Orleans and bought a new suit, sport coat, shirts, ties—and a shiny new pair of shoes. I arrived via company airplane, a Model 421 that would be on static display at Lakefront Airport and rode downtown to the French Quarter, where my colleagues and I were staying at the venerable Hotel Monteleone.
As a junior PR guy, I wanted to make sure I watched my expenditures, and since I was heading to early press day events alone, I decided to walk the two dozen blocks to the convention center on the first morning. I was all decked out in my fancy new duds and began the trek to the exhibit hall on the riverfront. By the time I made my way up to Royal Street to Canal Street, I was already perspiring. New Orleans is pretty humid.
When I reached Poydras, I realized I hadn’t broken in my new shoes. They were shiny and making a real impression—on my heels and toes! I arrived at the convention center a rumpled, overheated mess, and barely able to walk with bleeding blisters on both feet. I learned a valuable lesson right away—wear comfortable and supportive shoes if you’re going to be on your feet most of the next four days at a trade show.
That New Orleans show was also Russ Meyer’s first as Cessna chairman and it was great to be a part of it. But, I was also very concerned; I didn’t want to foul up. I was told, for instance, that I would be traveling back to Wichita in the 421 on which I had arrived, along with a couple of other colleagues. I was instructed to be at Lakefront by mid-afternoon on Thursday in order to be ready to leave as soon as the static display aircraft were released.
I took no chances; I arrived with my luggage at the flight line at noon! I couldn’t find the 421, so I put my bags in the wing locker of a Model 310 parked in the Cessna display. I then walked out towards the taxiway and saw a 421 in the queue for the active runway. When it rolled for takeoff, I realized it was the airplane on which I had arrived. An executive needed to be back in Wichita, so he directed the crew to extricate the airplane from the display and leave early—three hours before the estimated time of departure! I had to scramble to get to Moisant Airport, buy an expensive one-way ticket through St. Louis to Wichita. I got home at 2:30 in the morning.
In the old days of NBAA, exhibitors vied aggressively to attract attendees to their displays. Lots of very attractive young women graced the exhibits. Marathon Battery was famous for its bevy of beautiful women. By the mid-’80s, that trend was beginning to wane—for obvious reasons.
I took the position of v-p of public relations at Garrett Corp. in 1984. We had become well-known for our NBAA exhibit that featured very attractive hostesses dressed in shorts and T-shirts. They presided over a popular booth that offered a T-shirt with what could be described as the forerunner of a “selfie” of each visitor on the front and the Garrett logo on the back.
Among my first decisions in my new role was to move away from the T-shirt promotion and staff our exhibit with Garrett employees who knew about our products and services. I told our exhibit manager that we wouldn’t be hiring any models for 1985. He wasn’t pleased.
On the day before the 1985 show opened in New Orleans when well-known reporter Bob Parrish wandered through the display hall looking for “intelligence” items for inclusion in the daily, he asked the exhibit manager what was new for this year. Exasperated, the manager uttered a memorable phrase—which Parrish used as the headline for his short paragraph on Garrett—“No more bimbos!” Though I had NEVER used that phrase and never would, it was me who had ended a long-standing tradition at Garrett, so he attributed the sentiment to me rather than its true author. It took a while for me to live down something I never said!
When I took over as the v-p of meetings and membership at NBAA in April of 1992, much of the preparation for the upcoming show in Dallas hadn’t been done. I had been hired by Jack Olcott, who had just been installed as president of NBAA a few weeks earlier. We discovered that our predecessors had left without making a lot of important decisions. We scrambled to get the convention back on track.
Fortunately, I had attended the show for more than a decade and was familiar with a lot of it. Early on, I hired Kathleen Hull (now Blouin), who had worked for Jack at Business and Commercial Aviation magazine and she brought excellent organizational skills and creativity to her role. She went on to make exceptional contributions to NBAA and the business aviation community over the next two decades.
To my chagrin, I found that exhibitors hadn’t been required to be members or associate members of the NBAA to participate in the show. This meant that the organization had very poor records of its convention participants.
We were also shocked to learn that there were no signed contracts for upcoming show sites or dates. However, included in unwritten plans were commitments to that the show would be held in Detroit, Michigan, and Miami. Unfortunately, Detroit couldn’t handle the convention space at Joe Louis Arena and didn’t have adequate convention-style hotel space downtown. Detroit City Airport was proposed for the static display. It couldn’t offer adequate parking or nearby hotel space, either. Miami had endured Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and damage from the storm to the convention center was still being repaired. We needed different sites.
A long-standing NBAA board tenet excluded Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida, from consideration, even though both sites had more than adequate hotel space and good static display airport choices. The problem, according to the “conventional wisdom” of the board, was that either site would offer too many distractions from the NBAA show itself and would adversely affect attendance and focus. Too many potential attendees riding Space Mountain or playing Blackjack, I guess. Kathleen and I visited both places, put together a plan, and, along with a proposal that included proposed sites and dates for the next 10 years, presented them to the board in a closely-guarded meeting at NBAA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
We weren’t sure whether we would be celebrated or reprimanded for proposing the previously forbidden sites, but the board chose to hold the 1995 show in Vegas and the 1996 convention in Orlando. Right after the decision had been made, the board meeting recessed briefly. Within a couple of minutes of stepping out of the session, I got a call from a veteran business aviation editor who said, “I understand you’ll be taking the convention to Las Vegas and Orlando for the first time ever.” I was flabbergasted that he knew we were even considering such a thing, but he had the scoop! It turned out he got a tip from a very well-connected board member who had called him and divulged the secret as soon as we took our break. Business aviation is definitely a close-knit industry!
Among my favorite memories of NBAA are the dinners and get-together with friends from far-flung locations each year. Attendees, exhibitors, and media members come from all over the world to the show. We would often not see each other at any other time during the year or—at the most, at a couple of other trade shows—so it was always enjoyable to catch up at NBAA.
In years past we would put together dinners, often with members of the press, at great restaurants in the show city, places like Commander’s Palace in Atlanta, Arnaud’s in New Orleans, Bouchon in Las Vegas, or any one of dozens of restaurants on International Drive in Orlando. I can’t count the times or express the enjoyment I get out of going to the annual NBAA press dinner and what I like to call “Cassandra’s pre-show potluck” scheduled by our great friend (and former NBAA media liaison) Cassandra Bosco in the various cities where the convention is held. The latter is a loose gathering of industry friends held the Sunday night before the show begins. She picked the restaurant, we’d divvy up the bill, and have a great time reminiscing, telling stories, and cracking jokes. It’s a tradition that I have looked forward to for many years.
Speaking of telling jokes, for a number of years we held dinners to induct new members into the Sans Cravat (translation: without tie) club at NBAA. The event was hosted by Gary Worden and Bob Fyan, founders of the august organization that consisted of friends they had “ambushed” at previous dinners. They would literally sneak up behind their targets during the meal and suddenly and without warning cut off the ends of their ties! It was their way of taking some of the formality out of NBAA.
They usually invited numerous guests—along with their inductees (who received a framed membership plaque adorned with the severed ends of their ties)—enough to fill several tables. After dinner and the very irreverent presentations to new members, we would often hold a competition among the tables to see who could come up with the best joke to share. This, of course, involved everyone at each table telling their dinner mates their favorite joke. Once a “winner” was determined in each group, the final round of the competition would commence with each table’s designated joke-teller doing his or her best to inspire raucous laughter. These memorable events often extended well past closing hours at the restaurants that hosted them!
NBAA changed dramatically and grew exponentially during my career as an attendee. I looked forward to every one. In the nearly half a century I went to the show, I only missed one until last year. That was in 1980 and it was the closest and easiest for me to attend from my home in Wichita. That year, the show was held in Kansas City—a three-hour drive from home! Unfortunately for me, during that year I was working for Associated Advertising Agency and we had a conflict!
I used to save old NBAA Convention News editions from the shows and read through them to relive some of the great times. I especially liked the first day’s edition for the 1993 show in Dallas because it included a two-page spread on Kathleen and me as we prepared to host our first show as NBAA officials. After more than 40 years, I recently had to dispose of them because my office looked like I was getting ready to film an episode of “Hoarders.”
I can’t name all of the people who have made my many visits to NBAA fun, fruitful, and fondly remembered but some who are no longer around are not forgotten: Dave Ewald, who deserves to be remembered each year with the award presented at the show in his honor; my buddy and flight instructor Dave Pishko; the aforementioned Bob Fyan from Flying magazine; AIN founding editor Jim Holohan; Dean Humphrey, my boss at Cessna; Bruce Whitman, a great friend and encourager; and my mentor and CEO at AlliedSignal, Roy Ekrom. They all helped me not only enjoy the event, but they taught me how to cope and, in some cases, supported me in tough times when, for example in 1999, my NBAA was interrupted by the tragic crash of a Challenger 604 at our facility in Wichita while I was working for Bombardier. I had to cut short my attendance that year to return home and conduct one of the most difficult press conferences ever.
Still, NBAA will always be among my most enjoyable experiences. The biggest reasons, of course, are all of you who have made it so. For me, NBAA really means: “No Better Aviation Associates.”
