Aviation Week, in partnership with the International Aviation Club of Washington, announced today that John Byerly, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the U.S., is the 2012 recipient of the L. Welch Pogue Award. This prestigious annual award, named in honor of one of the founding fathers of international civil aviation, recognizes lifetime achievement in aviation. Byerly will be recognized at an awards gala dinner on April 25 in Washington, D.C.
"John Byerly has been the driving force behind many of the important aviation, aerospace and defense decisions made by the U.S. over the past three decades," said Greg Hamilton, president, Aviation Week. "With an illustrious career and inscrutable focus on providing market opportunities, John has left an incredible legacy. We are pleased to be able to honor him with the Pogue Award for his lifetime of achievement."
John Byerly served from 2001 to 2010 as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for market-opening aviation agreements with over 70 countries, personally leading U.S. delegations that secured Open Skies with Germany, France, and Japan as well as the historic Open Skies Plus accord with the European Union. Byerly helped implement the U.S. response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, was instrumental in securing U.S. ratification of the 1999 Montreal Convention on airline accident liability, and participated actively in the economic, legal, and environmental work of the International Civil Aviation Organization. In a government career spanning 31 years, Byerly served as Legal Adviser to the U.S. Mission in divided Berlin, as Principal Deputy General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, as General Counsel to the Sinai peacekeeping force, and as the primary legal adviser in U.S. efforts to end conflicts in Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Ethiopia/Eritrea, and Rwanda.
"John Byerly led the U.S. through some of its most tremendous international aviation milestones and represented his true aptitude of negotiation with determination and diplomacy," said Natalie Hartman, president of the International Aviation Club of Washington and a U.S. executive for Deutsche Lufthansa Aviation Group. "On behalf of the Board of Governors of the International Aviation Club, we applaud his extraordinary service and leadership to our industry and proudly recognize him with the Pogue Award."
Pogue was an author, lecturer, aviation statesman and attorney for several major airlines and industry groups. He also chaired the fledgling U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) in 1942-1946, representing the U.S. at the historic 1944 Chicago International Civil Aviation Conference, where 55 nations determined the framework of rules and treaties that have governed international civil aviation since the end of World War II.
The Pogue Award, first presented in 1994 to Pogue, is bestowed each year to an individual who is considered a visionary and a preeminent leader of contemporary aviation. Other Pogue winners include Giovanni Bisignani, CEO of IATA; Henri Wassenbergh, aviation scholar; Adm. Donald Engen, former director, National Air & Space Museum; Alfred Kahn, former CAB chairman; John Robson, former CAB chairman; Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation; Robert Francis II, former vice chairman, National Transportation Safety Board; John Kern, former VP Regulatory Compliance and Chief Safety Officer, Northwest Airlines; Delford Smith, founder and chairman, Evergreen International Aviation; Jurgen Weber, chairman & CEO, Deutsche Lufthansa AG; Robert Crandall, former chairman & CEO, American Airlines; Herb Kellerher, former chairman & CEO, Southwest Airlines; Jeffrey Shane, Under Secretary of Transportation Policy, U.S. Department of Transportation; Brian O'Keeffe, father of the Future Air Navigation System; and Helen Muir, director, Cranfield Institute for Safety, Risk and Reliability.
For more information on the Pogue Award gala on April 25 in Washington, D.C., visit http://www.iacwashington.org/Events.aspx?eventId=461873.
