The FAI Executive Board, L to R: Timo Hyvönen, Agust Gudmundsson, Gillian Rayner, Greg Principato, Marina Vigorito, Mary Anne Stevens, Igor Erzen, Markus Haggeney

Newly elected FAI President Greg Principato steps into his role with a clear purpose: to strengthen the global air sports community, deliver value to its members, and ensure FAI remains a cornerstone of excellence. With a distinguished career, including leadership of the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) in the United States, Principato brings extensive experience and a collaborative approach to tackling challenges such as improving member engagement, enhancing communication, and fostering greater recognition of air sports on a global scale.

FAI President Greg Principato

What motivated you to pursue the presidency of FAI?

When I retired from the leadership of the National Aeronautic Association (The NAC-National Airsport Control of the USA) a former FAI leader reached out and suggested I consider standing for president, believing my experience and temperament would be a good fit at this time in FAI's history. At the time of the FAI General Conference in Dayton in 2023, by which time I had already retired from NAA, a number of Members approached me with the same suggestion. I spent most of the next year talking to Members (I have two notebooks full of notes from those conversations) including dozens of NAC leaders and every commission president. Many of them believed I could offer value at this time for FAI, much as Bob Henderson did in his time and David Monks did in his. It is important that air sports, and indeed aviation as a whole, have a high functioning and successful FAI. Not just because we have been around so long, but because we have the history and the integrity of reputation and process to be the ones to define and recognise excellence in our field. And by doing so, provide incentive for even greater excellence and growth in the years to come.

Could you outline your primary objectives for FAI during your mandate?

FAI has so many committed, passionate leaders and volunteers, served by an exceptionally dedicated and passionate Secretariat. A great leader once told me that passion is the essential ingredient, and we have that in abundance. The challenge has always been, in a global organisation, to bring all of those centres of passion and dedication together into a coherent whole. So that we may learn from one another and make each other better. So that we can make the whole FAI way better than just the sum of its parts. I have a history of doing that throughout my career, including in international organisations, and I believe I can lead the effort to make FAI exactly that.

What is your long-term vision for FAI?

Value. Our Members need us to provide value to them as they pursue their own missions of excellence in air sports, whether in their countries or the FAI Commissions. We need to provide support. Information and education. We need to work with them to grow their sports, because without that we will not last. They need us to help them address larger issues such as environmental sustainability and the attraction of young people, including women and other non-traditional (for lack of a better word) populations, and air space issues and so many others. We will not grow and thrive if we do not do this. We need to help Members share experiences and information. To publicise their successes in ways that get attention across generations and around the world. It is a large world and a global organisation must help its Members work together across national and cultural lines. We have Members asking what our vision is. We have Members ask about the value we provide them in return for the resources they give us. We need to show them what we can do for them. If we succeed they will succeed.

What are the main current challenges facing air sports globally?

Our main challenges cross national lines. They include attracting a new and diverse group of athletes and participants. They include making changes so that all air sport athletes, male and female regardless of nationality, ethnicity or orientation, can feel welcome to join, stay and thrive in our community. They include pressures from society's expectation that we will be environmentally sustainable. They include the fact that so few people truly understand what we do, and the bigger picture benefits of what we do. This includes people in the broader society who may be wary of aviation's impact on the environment or their communities, political leaders who make decisions that impact all of us, the media who write and speak about aviation and air sports even if they know little. People in our community, like in aviation generally, tend to talk to one another and not enough to the broader world. We are knowledgeable and passionate. But we rely on the support and decisions made by people who know little about us but whose reactions to what we do can be critical. We MUST tell our story.

What strategies do you propose to enhance FAI's engagement with its Member Organisations and the broader air sports community?

We will be holding an all-Members meeting in the first quarter of the year to lay the groundwork for an agreed vision and agreed program of work. I will be holding regular town hall type meetings with Members so they can hear directly from me, and from other FAI leaders. We are going to do a Members survey to hear directly from Members so that our decisions are based on their input. We are reinstituting the system of Executive Board members having portfolios which include liaisons for the Commissions. We have an amazing Executive Board with a broad array of experiences. We will be inviting commissions and NACs to join Executive Board meetings from time to time to ensure better communication. I will keep doing what I did last year, reach out to the national and Commission leaders to hear directly from them. They should not only hear from us when we need something or send an invoice, we need to regularly understand what is on their minds. We will establish a system by which NACs can share their stories with one another; ask for help with challenges and opportunities. It is hard for NACs to speak with one another. We must make it easier for them to do so. Where we have that kind of openness and transparency we can build trust, share successes, help one another overcome challenges and make FAI as great as it can be.