An 8,000-hour general aviation pilot with a diverse “fleet” of personal aircraft will be the next (and sixth, ever) President and CEO of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), as of on January 1, 2025. Darren Pleasance also has a strong background in business, most recently as leader of Cisco Systems’ Acceleration Center, whose corporate mission was “to accelerate the success of mission-critical aspects of Cisco's business transformation.”
I also think they need to bring back the conventions/summits, or at least have fewer but more extensive “flyouts”. The current flyouts just aren’t the same, and I don’t feel as engaged by the organization as I did with the larger conventions.
Accessible, Affordable, Safe?
Wow, those are some nice words. He probably will say those words. I like those words too. I’d like it more if they ever came into being.
I hope he is better than the last group! I left the AOPA after 30 years as a member. When I called to say I was leaving it was ‘have a nice day’. Not so much as thank you, why are you leaving? No follow up message. It was like I never existed.
I think it’s more than time that the former CEO to get out of the chair (?? may be not, once he always had an hand in the his pants pockets) he occupied.
Wait from a short time and we all begin to see the difference of posture and the revival of AOPA.
I got it! The bottom line on Darren Pleasance is that members are cautiously optimistic about his leadership. They appreciate his qualifications and background, particularly as a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI), and hope he will improve member engagement, affordability, and accessibility in aviation. However, some are skeptical, citing past disappointments with AOPA leadership and expressing concern about whether these promises will be fulfilled. Overall, there’s a sense of hope for positive change but tempered with a wait-and-see attitude.
We can all surely be “hopeful” but I would suggest that the skepticism is well placed considering the apparent entrenched corporate culture on the part of AOPA over the last 10+ years. When that organization/culture hands you $1.6 million in annual salary to work for them, I doubt that they were admitting their own deficiencies over the past decade and instead were looking for someone to “lead them differently”. Meet the new boss…
Being a private pilot and owner, yea, I’ll wait and see and hope.