Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: Good morning. Good morning. Sorry,

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: we're a little late this morning. This is a bigger crowd than most people expected. I'm Richard Westman. I'm the chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, and we're here with

[Representative Matt Walker (Chair, House Transportation Committee)]: Matt Walker, House Transportation Chair. And we're not giving away anything for free, but we're glad that you're all

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: here. We

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: have eight people on the schedule, and we are limited in time. The senate Transportation Committee has to be out of here at ten So we're gonna hold people to five minutes each as we go through this. So, and- everybody is five minutes.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Okay. Perfect.

[Representative Matt Walker (Chair, House Transportation Committee)]: And the House Transportation Committee will stick around afterwards to hear what else you have to say.

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: Okay, wonderful.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: So we need your name and who you are, and then we'll go from law.

[Chuck Suss (Bennington, VT)]: Chuck Suss, Pennington, Vermont. I'm nobody. Great things thank you for all being. Great things have small beginnings. Why are we here? Back in December at my invitation, Secretary Flynn and Aviation Director Robinson came to our hangar in Bennington because I am from the hospitality trade, I'm known for my barbecue, and I would feed the airport from time to time. And so I invited Joe, Evan, and they came down, and after meeting the group of people who worked there and the pilots, Joe became enthusiastic and said, we need to unify. We need to get together and present ourselves to you, our legislators, and share the stories of aviation and what it does for our communities. Today, you're going to hear the same story, aviation in many different colors. My airplane, and I'll teach Grand Finanza. Everybody go, oh. At our own airport, that airplane is responsible for jobs on and off the airfield and economic development on and off the airfield. You're going and that's what you're going to hear today, what we bring to the party. It's the slumbering giant that you didn't know was there. Thank you very much.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Thank you. The House Commerce Committee is also online watching.

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: Wonderful.

[Michelle Rosebel (High school senior, Jericho, VT; Habitat for Aviation)]: Hi, I'm Michelle Rosebel. I'm a high school senior from Jericho, Vermont doing early college, and I was wondering if all the members of Habitat for Aviation could stand up. Anybody here from Habitat and stand up. As Havasat for Aviation, we're an organization that is dedicated to an all women's field plane. Currently, 47 of the workforce is made up of women. Yet only 5% of the airplane pilots are women. Only 2.6% of licensed aviation technicians are women. And only 3.6% of airline captains are women. This makes up the largest gap in the workforce.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Hi. I'm Axley. I'm Laudie Bonnie. I'm Rand. Granny.

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: Bro. Bushwil.

[Michelle Rosebel (High school senior, Jericho, VT; Habitat for Aviation)]: I'm one of over 100 girls building this airplane. When

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: most people picture aviation, they don't picture someone who looks like me. Or me.

[Robin Gillian (Director, VTSU Aviation; Chief Flight Instructor, Vermont Flight Academy)]: Or me. Or

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: me. Or me. Or me. Or Or me. We're here to rescript the narrative. We want to inspire girls and women to be in the workplaces where they can be pilots and plane mechanics. We're changing the story of who flies, builds and fixes airplanes. If I had something like this

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: when I was young, I would have found

[Robin Gillian (Director, VTSU Aviation; Chief Flight Instructor, Vermont Flight Academy)]: my place in aviation. I work as a

[Unidentified female aerospace engineer (Habitat for Aviation volunteer)]: full time engineer at an aerospace company.

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: I'm the only woman on my team and I volunteer on my weekends here at Habitat for Aviation. I think programs like these are so important because women need to see themselves in these areas and spaces.

[Michelle Rosebel (High school senior, Jericho, VT; Habitat for Aviation)]: Why does this matter for our great state of Vermont? It's because women working full time in Vermont only make 86¢ for every dollar. Airplanes, mechanics, technicians is a field that's expected to grow more than any other with 11% growth over the next couple of years. However, the gap in occupations is growing more rapidly than ever. This will lead to delays at the airport at a very fast rate if you haven't already been experiencing them. That's okay. Okay. The FAA did a survey and they asked women when they first became interested in airplanes and avionics. And the one through line was that it happened at a very young age with most people being interested between ages 10 to 20, which is why we find our outreach very important because it's to get to women and young girls at this crucial age and time so that we can address this gap in the workforce in gender and in overall laughing.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Kicked me off.

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: So

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: we are the first, as far as we can tell, all female airplane build ever in the history of aviation. My name is Beth White and I'm the founder of Habitat for Aviation. We are building a real airplane. This is a hands on building project, and we're also building a sense of community and belonging. And we're doing enrichment activities like presentations like this one, lunch and learns, and open hanger events. Our youngest builder is nine years old and our eldest is a granny. We are a multi generational team and we learn from one another. And this multi generational team is very special. We

[Michelle Rosebel (High school senior, Jericho, VT; Habitat for Aviation)]: have approximately one thousand hours and 10 ks rivets on this airplane. We're building a Rams S21 kit airplane. It's a 52 plane, which means we build part of it and part of it comes preassembled. A lot of the metal pieces come assembled. And we're working on our techniques of learning how to rivet and how to drill and saw and so that we get those technical skills. And a lot of our builders are working towards their mechanic and private pilot's license.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: So our core values are relationships, and we're more like sisters and a family. And we're also developing relationships with aviation professionals who are in the field. Our next core value is relevance. We work on real things. We work on real airplanes. And through ACT 77, our youth are able to receive school credit for this powerful learning that's happening in our hangars. And our third is practice. Like you need to practice a lot in order to produce high quality work. We do a lot of community outreach and our intention is that through one on one conversations, young people will look up to us and say, maybe I could be her. When we are done building our airplane, our intention is to fly to air shows and to fly to every single airport in this beautiful state and show with our pink plane that women build planes, women fix planes and women fly planes. And thank you for that. Next, we're gonna share with you a little bit about the EAA Chapter six thirteen, and I am going to try to join this meeting again. So you can start, Ian.

[Ian Brudetz (EAA Chapter 613)]: Yes. Hello, everybody. My name is Ian Brudetz. I am 18 years old, and I am graduating from Community College of Vermont this December as an early college student. I'll tell you guys a little bit about the Experimental Aircraft Association and what it does for the youth and other members of the community interested in aviation here in Vermont. It'd be great if we could

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: We don't have it memorized.

[Ian Brudetz (EAA Chapter 613)]: What I'll have happen here is if anybody who is part of the External Aircraft Association can stand up. So Experimental Aircraft Association is a non profit organization that is open to all members of the community interested in aviation, and it offers hands on learning and mentorship for anybody interested in pursuing it as a career field. Experimental Aircraft Association is open to pilots and really just anybody interested. That includes youth, and we offer programs talk community to by bringing in folks to participate in pancake breakfasts, fly ins, and we also offer a few educational programs through some training devices such as flight simulators and also an aircraft build of our own. At the airport, you'll see a beautiful hangar. It's the Taylor Aviation hangar where we have an aircraft build, we also host community events such as youth summer camps. And also that is where we have our breakfasts and other community events. So one great benefit that we offer there is actually what's called young eagle flights. So we offer free flights that are basically introductory lessons for youth ages eight to 17, and they will also receive a online course to help them take their FAA written exam and then pursue a pilot's license, which is what I ended up doing. So we also have a youth aviation committee that connects youth to resources such as scholarships, and so far we have a scholarship wrangler who has been able to get multiple youth scholarships in order to pursue a career in aviation, which has also been a great way to develop

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: Keep going. Yep.

[Ian Brudetz (EAA Chapter 613)]: Careers for folks here in Vermont. So the Experimental Aircraft Association has gotten 19 new Thrill licenses over the last few years, And all those folks, or most of those folks before graduating high school actually. So I'm actually still technically a senior in high school, and I've gotten my pilot's license last year. And 47.4% of those folks were women. So that is a great deal beyond the national average. Just talking about a couple of people here that have been bright spots. We have Joseph Mensa, who has gotten their pilot's license through EA Chapter six thirteen and has gotten school credit through flexible pathways while participating at the EA Chapter. And today he is a pilot for commute air flying an Embraer 145 jet. Are we all right?

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: No, keep quiet.

[Ian Brudetz (EAA Chapter 613)]: Okay. Kai Rebecca. Kai Rebecca, who is one of our first race scholars. She received a scholarship through the EA and started flying before graduating college. And she is now a airline captain for the home.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Well, thank you. We'll have the next round of folks come and then we'll continue troubleshooting this situation. I'm going to try to join via my phone. So thank you guys.

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: Thank you.

[Chuck Suss (Bennington, VT)]: Thank you very much.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: It seems that the Wi Fi is down.

[Toby Schein (Co-owner, Netsera Air flight school, Caledonia State Airport/Lyndonville)]: We'll just give it thirty maybe ten seconds to load here. But hi, I'm Toby Schein. I'm the co owner of Netsera Air. We're a flight school in Limmenville, Vermont at the Calamonia State Airport. And just wanted to talk a little bit about small businesses and the importance of small businesses at Vermont airports by highlighting three, telling the story of a startup, our little flight school out of a 3,000 foot runway in the Northeast Kingdom, Lakeview Aviation, a very well established fixed based operator in Newport, and then also the Green Mountain Avionics specialized aviation business in Pittsburgh, Vermont. So we'll see if the slides have floated or

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: Sorry, guys. I just have to talk about what you remember.

[Toby Schein (Co-owner, Netsera Air flight school, Caledonia State Airport/Lyndonville)]: Sure, absolutely. So to tell you a little bit about Yudsera Air, we're we're a flight school in Lindenville, and we started up two years ago after twenty years of there being no instruction at the airport. In many ways, Caledonia was regarded as the sleepiest airport, I think, in Vermont. And that's really, really changed in the last couple of years. We began with one instructor, one aircraft. We have two aircraft now, five instructors, and we've had approximately 70 students in the last couple of years. We started at the airport with about 20 aircraft on the field, 20 pilots who were called me the very, very young guy. So that gives you a sense of the average age at our airport. And now we have students ranging in age from 16 up to 82. They're working on their private pilot licenses. They're getting their instrument license, their commercial license, and working on becoming instructors as well. To me, it shows what happens when an investment is made of any kind in starting an airport business and that it's something that the community really responded to, something we didn't know if it was gonna work, and and here it is. Oh, perfect.

[Alastair Crawford (Springfield Airport Commission)]: There we go.

[Toby Schein (Co-owner, Netsera Air flight school, Caledonia State Airport/Lyndonville)]: And so that's what I wanted to mention about Caledonia State. Our neighbor to the north is Lakeview Aviation, the fixed based operator. And that as a business is is really if if an airport is a main street, the small businesses on the airport are vibrant shop fronts on that on that main street. And Lakeview Aviation is where every aviator knows they can go to get what they need. If it's fuel, maintenance, aircraft rental, training, you name it. And it's also where the community knows that they can reach out if they have a young person interested in aviation and get them involved. And there's a great value in that and opening the door for the next generation. We did have a short video about Lakeview Aviation, which we'll send in the notes, but it did talk about the importance of the investment made there ten years ago to the runway environment and to the buildings. And now with the recently completed terminal, that there's a foundation there in the infrastructure to really facilitate future growth and a lot of enthusiasm towards making that happen at the airport and in that community, which is really terrific. And then finally, I wanted to talk a little bit about the specialized business at the Green Mountain Avionics shop in Middlebury. So avionics are the navigation equipment, the instruments, all the fancy knots and dials in the front of an airplane. People pay a lot to train on, and they are there for everybody in the state to fix avionics, make aircraft repairs, do routine inspections, and they also drive a lot of business coming in from out of the state. Bill Hanff, who runs the Green Mountain Avionics, has really focused on bringing in young professionals from the area, and he's he's doing that to keep high-tech jobs in Vermont. We're back at quickly time.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Right right where I am. And

[Toby Schein (Co-owner, Netsera Air flight school, Caledonia State Airport/Lyndonville)]: they've been recognized in the field, which is something that I think we're all proud of. They received the Aviation Training Excellence Award this past year, and they also were the Aviation Electronics Association member of the year. So their work is being recognized, and they're seen as a company that's bringing in a lot of business to the area. So just just to summarize, small businesses, I think, are vital in Vermont at airports. They are where the local community and rural Vermonters connect to aviation and have that first experience or can pursue a career in aviation. They also make sure that we have the resources we need to facilitate tourism to every corner of the state, and they create sustainable career opportunities to Vermonters, which is important. These are just three small examples of businesses. There are many, many more in the state, And thank you.

[Robin Gillian (Director, VTSU Aviation; Chief Flight Instructor, Vermont Flight Academy)]: Good morning, everybody, and thank you for being here. Thank you for your service to the state of Vermont, and thank you to Beth White for making us all come together with our community partners. My name is Robin Gillian, and I'm the Vermont State University Aviation Director for the Professional Pilot Technology Program. Also the Aviation Maintenance Program, and I serve as the Chief Flight Instructor for Vermont Flight Academy. At Vermont State University, we make pilots with a four year aviation degree, We have 100 alums flying for the major airlines, corporate flight departments, in military service, and as flight instructors at Burlington, Rutland, Caledonia, and Franklin County airports. During the program, our pilots, by the time they complete, will have completed at least 500 of their once again speed towards their airline pilot certification to go on to their next steps. We have several community partners. We'll click to the next one. We have several community partners, one of which is Burlington Technical Center, which is an FAA approved aviation maintenance training center for secondary and post secondary students. This is helping to fill that void that we talked about earlier for aviation maintainers that's needed all across The United States Of America. At Vermont Flight Academy, they support us by flying all of our college students and also in their community flight program. We completed over 100 pilot certification check rides at Grand Isle Flight Academy last year, as well as five zoo camps.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Alright, guys.

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: Our

[Robin Gillian (Director, VTSU Aviation; Chief Flight Instructor, Vermont Flight Academy)]: pilots will participate in pilot mock interview day at the end of the year, then they will That's okay. And then they will also complete community outreach. And we have gone to over 16 elementary school visits and taught aerodynamics to over 1,000 elementary school students. So without more data and stats, here's a word from our pilots.

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: Hey, guys. My name is Ryan Burke, class of 2020. I currently work

[Ryan Burke (F-35 pilot, Vermont Air National Guard)]: for the Vermont Air National Guard as an F-thirty five pilot and I live in Stockbridge, Vermont.

[Toby Schein (Co-owner, Netsera Air flight school, Caledonia State Airport/Lyndonville)]: My name

[Alex Judkowski (Captain/Line Instructor, Phenom 300 at Flexjet)]: is Alex Judkowski and I was in the class of 2016. I moved to Vermont for the Professional Pilot Technology program and I stayed here ever since. Still live in Montgomery and I'm a captain and line instructor on the Phenom three hundred at Flushing. Hey guys, this is Eli Robertson. I'm class of 2021 in Vermont Tech from Southern Vermont, I'm the first officer at Delta Airlines.

[Eli Robertson (First Officer, Delta Air Lines)]: We're about to leave New York Kennedy for Dublin, Ireland. Welcome aboard.

[Unidentified VTSU alumnus (video)]: '21 from Vermont Technical College, now Vermont State University. Currently, I'm a captain at Republic Airways on the Embraer one seventy five in Boston. I live in Boston now, but I frequently come back to my hometown and visit Springfield,

[Unidentified VTSU alumnus (video)]: New Hampshire, and I still have great ties to Vermont. I was born there, went to Vermont State University, and continue to be active in the aviation community in Vermont.

[Mateo Reno Smith (First Officer, SkyWest Airlines)]: My name is Mateo Reno Smith, class of 2023. I'm a first officer at SkyWest, and I fly the CRJ. I grew up in, Williston, Vermont, and, yeah, now, fly jets for SkyWest.

[Various VTSU alumni (video montage)]: Hi. I'm Sarah O'Connor. I'm the class of 2023, and I am an adjunct faculty member with Vermont State University in the professional pilot technology program. I'm a flight instructor at Vermont Flight Academy in Burlington, Vermont, and a flight instructor with the Air at Caledonia County in Lindenville, Vermont. I also do some volunteer flying where I fly animals in need of rescue to their new homes.

[Sarah O'Connor (Adjunct faculty, VTSU; Flight Instructor, Burlington & Caledonia)]: Later this year, I'll be joining Republic Airways as a first officer on their Embraer one seventy five, and I'll continue to live in the Northeast Kingdom.

[Emmett King (Flight Instructor, Beta Technologies)]: My name is Emmett King. I live in Burlington, Vermont. I graduated BTSU last fall, and I'm a flight instructor at Beta Technologies.

[Hannah Neto (Jet Linx pilot; Flight Instructor at Beta)]: My name is Hannah Neto. I'm from Canaan, Vermont. I'm BTSU class of 2024. I'm a private jet pilot at JetLinks as well as a flight instructor here at Beta. My

[Dylan McGuire (Flight Instructor, Beta Technologies; VTSU class of 2026)]: name is Dylan McGuire. I live here in Burlington, Vermont. I'm BTSU class of 2026, and I work here now as a flight instructor at Beta.

[Toby Schein (Co-owner, Netsera Air flight school, Caledonia State Airport/Lyndonville)]: Hi. Bruce Fortman, class of 2025

[Bruce Fortman (VTSU Professional Pilot student; CFI at Netsera Air)]: of State University's professional pilot technology program, and I live at Harvard, Vermont. I'm CFI for GetSarah Air in Lindenville.

[Unidentified VTSU alumnus (video)]: Hi. My name is. I'm a certified flight instructor at Vermont Fly Academy. I'm also the class of 2026 at Vermont State University.

[Jeffrey Perez (Vermont State University, flight instructor)]: Hi. My name is Jeffrey Perez. I'm a Vermont State University graduate of 2026, and I work as a certified flight instructor here at Vermont Flight Academy.

[Levi Mulligan (Flight Instructor, Vermont Flight Academy)]: Hi. My name is Levi Mulligan. I'm a flight instructor here at Vermont Flight Academy, and I am graduating class of 2026 at Vermont State University. I enjoy teaching people here to learn how to fly.

[Unidentified narrator (VTSU alumni video)]: Consist of over 100 alumni flying professionally, ATSU aviators can live anywhere but more than 50% of us choose to make Vermont a phase. Highly trained and highly compensated aviation professionals with earning potential of over 7,000,000 in our career, we give back to our community. Communities provide mentorship to alumni and keep the public and private sectors of aviation safe, both domestically and internationally. What we've achieved professionally was made possible with access to all of the Vermont Bay Airport. Thank you everyone. A big,

[Robin Gillian (Director, VTSU Aviation; Chief Flight Instructor, Vermont Flight Academy)]: big shout out to Sarah Christian O'Connor who made that feel for us.

[Alastair Crawford (Springfield Airport Commission)]: My glasses off so I can see. Good morning. My name is Alastair Crawford. I'm with the Springfield Airport Commission. And I'm here this morning to talk a little about Springfield Airport. There's a lot of activity at Springfield, including business aviation, aviation businesses, aerospace and STEM education, recreational aviation and soaring, air tourism and events, community events, airport businesses. And of course, the airport is critical emergency infrastructure for Southern Vermont. Moving on. So a little bit about business aviation. We have charter flights coming in and out of the airport to support the local area and of chemo. Corporate aviation, Scotts Miracle Gro alone did two fifty operations or so last year. We have small businesses on the airport. Springfield Aviation is a local maintenance shop. And FBO, Highland Aviation is a tailwheel specialist instruction entity. We have other aerospace businesses around the airport, such as Sarasair. You see there a picture of one of their crop spray drones. These are large drones, carry 200,

[Representative Matt Walker (Chair, House Transportation Committee)]: 300

[Alastair Crawford (Springfield Airport Commission)]: pound loads. And the Springfield Regional Development Corporation is a supporter, and they see the airport as a good resource in recruiting companies like that to our area. Yeah, you can click there. Moving on to Aerospace and STEM education. The Vermont Aviation Advisory Council, not the state committee, of the same name is an educational 501c3. And we run an aviation careers education, or ACE Academy, at the airport every year. It hosts 20 participants, ages 14 to 17. It's a five day program. Each day, we have a combination of classroom sessions, workshops, flight activities, and we also do a field trip up to eleven in the airport. It's supported by a huge number of community organizations, including Scotts Miracle Gro, Beta Technologies, DAAG, Southern Vermont National History Museum, Vermont Flight Academy, the Hypothermic Book Foundation, the EAA, Stumped Balloons, to name a few. The hold hold on just a second. Sorry. As the slides click through here, I'll just give a couple of examples of each of the different types of activities. So for classroom sessions, we do things such as Q and A with professional pilots. You guys come down and talk, and we talk about the Vermont State professional pilot programs. We have sessions on airspace and navigation. We have aerodynamic sessions, the math of rocket launches. For workshops, we do things like wooden wing rib construction, metalwork, and riveting. And of course, we build model rockets. For flight activities, we do everything from we do ballooning in the morning. We give them single engine aircraft flights. We do glider lessons. We do them as lessons so that they get to lock some flight instruction received and get some of those first hours that count towards their license should they choose to pursue it. We do helicopter flights. We do corporate jet flights. And every so often, we're able to get the Air National Guard to get them a C-one 130 flight, which is something special. We do a field trip up to Lebanon Airport. They get a tour of the air traffic in Philpair right there. And they also meet with Cape Air and Cape Air pilots, the airport management, learn a little bit about what's involved in running an airport with commercial activity. We'll move on here. Here's just a few examples of some of our participants, past participants. We've got on the left. She went on to the CAP glider program, the Nisa junior program, is now a graduate of the US Naval Academy. Ian Martell went on to the Nisa junior program, and he's now a director of sales at Direct Aircraft, and he's a Kenaires specialist. Vincent Moikens went on to the CAP glider program, the Nisa Junior program. He's a UVM graduate now, and he is the lead simulator developer for our own Beta Technologies right here. Do want to talk another example? He went on to the Nisa Junior program and then on to Vermont Tech, as it was at the time, VTSU, Professional Pilot Technology program. And just this year, he became a first officer at Southwest Airlines. Stefan Fellini, another example, went on to the Nisa Junior program, and he is currently at the US Air Force. So it's interesting how all these organizations and airports come together. We're gonna kick started. We'll come on up to you, and then we'll end up working over at Baylaus.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Or that you're there.

[Alastair Crawford (Springfield Airport Commission)]: Or there. Exactly. So it ties together in the Vermont State Airports, and organizations truly do make pilots and aerospace professionals. Moving on. Oh, you already moved on. Recreational Aviation and Soaring, we have New England Soaring Association. It is a glider club at the airport. It has over 65 members. It provides flight instruction, social activities. It's an all volunteer staff and instructors. They have a big junior program for over a dozen juniors. You can solo a glider at 14, get your license at 16. There's a number of scholarships available through the Soaring Society of America and the New England Soaring Foundation, which is also based at the airport. It's an accessible activity. We have a lot of local members, and a day with a club and one or two flight lessons really costs no more than a typical ski area day to So it is actually some aviation that people can get into. You can click there. We also host events at the airport each year, aero tourism events, things such as regional glider contests, cross country camps, flight instructor development courses. We have held a women's soaring seminar, and we have the Green Mountain Aerobatic Competition each year. All of these events bring somewhere in the order of 20 to 30 aircraft to the airport, along with their pilots and support crews, family and friends, supporters who all in turn use local hotels, restaurants, event caterers, airport businesses, car rentals, etcetera. And so they support the local businesses. And I'll leave it at that. But I guess the flavor of Springfield, thank you for your time.

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: Good morning, everybody. My name is Jeff Distasio. I live in Manchester, Vermont, and I'm a pilot out of Brooklyn, State Airport. I'd like to thank everybody for the privilege of speaking with you today. I think it's really important, to to hammer home the societal impact that aviation has on Vermonters and how it really does create a lot of equitable outcomes for Vermonters in need. So I'm going talk to you about a few things today. The first and most important is public benefit flying and understanding what that means, the impact that it has on Vermonters, and really what that brings to our communities. The second one is I'm a volunteer advanced EMT with London Dairy Rescue, and I'd like to help everybody understand the need that exists in the community for providing urgent medical care and the impact that our airports have on that as well. And then talk about some of the roles in emergency disaster response. I think we've got some folks from CAP here in Civil Air Patrol, and what they provide for mission support for youth training and mentoring, and then also career training and opportunities that I think you've heard a lot about it. So public benefit flying is effectively aircraft owners and pilots that are donating their time, their fuel, their airplanes, their resources to transport folks in need. These are kind of a few pictures from missions I've had the privilege of flying for Vermonters all over the area that are in need of things like cancer treatments, transplant follow ups, and our airports that operate from really rural areas like Franklin County, Rutland, Bennington, Northeast King, and all those places really open up medical care, world class medical care to Vermonters that is otherwise inaccessible to people. And it is free. So one of the organizations I volunteer with is Angel Flight New England. They're based in Lawrence, Mass. They're a nonprofit organization. And the mission is to provide free medical care to anybody in need, to them, to their families. Have a lot of Vermonters that are at places like Memorial Sloan Kettering or Dana Farber in Boston for extended stays. We help their families get back and forth. You look at, yeah, if you, you know, just an example of one Vermonter that's been featured in Angel Flight is Catherine, you know, a nine year old with a really aggressive form of brain cancer that we've provided a lot of medical treatment, excuse me, medical transport for, you know, really opens up a continuum of care that would otherwise be inaccessible to folks here in Vermont. If you just look at some of their statistics, the last couple of years, Angel Flight has flown about 78 missions now. Angel Flight is one organization. There's folks like Patient Airlift Services. There's another organization that I fly with called Veterans Airlift Command. They provide, transport services to veterans for things like PTSD treatments and otherwise. So this is just one small snapshot of one organization operating within Vermont. So last year, there were 78 missions flown by, private pilots that put folks from Vermont on 20 commercial flights. This year already, there's been 22 missions flown, so you can see we're ahead of pace. The demand is definitely growing for this type of service for Vermonters. And I think the really important thing to drive is we're providing access to vital lifesaving medical treatments that would otherwise be inaccessible or unaffordable to Vermonters. There's a lot of Vermonters for whom even the cost of a drive or a hotel room is the difference between treatment or not treatment, and we can take that away by making Boston or New York a day trip for them. You know, emergency services, understand that when any emergency medical organization calls for a transport helicopter, the dispatch decision that gets made is based on the weather reporting stations at our airports. So that is oftentimes in a serious car wreck, a heart attack, a stroke, whether or not they have access to those weather reporting stations at Rutland, Middlebury, Northeast Kingdom is the difference as to whether or not that helicopter actually flies. And I think that's a point that gets lost on a lot of folks because as we all know, the mountains create their own weather. What happens in Burlington isn't necessarily the case in Middlebury, so we're we're opening up accessibility for Vermonters to really lifesaving transport when it's needed. Emergency and disaster response, COVID-nineteen supplies, Irene relief. A lot of supplies came into our airports, to our local airports. Actually known that Vermonters are known for their goodwill and outreach. When the Western North Carolina Mountains were hit a couple of years ago with their devastating floods and hurricanes, we had a mission from Rutland Airport to fly down to Western North Carolina delivering supplies, and that was made possible by our airports. I think a lot of folks have talked about civil air patrol, the youth training, and things that they provide and bring to our communities really vital to exposing less advantaged Vermonters to aviation and to potentially very high paying, productive careers in society. And then the career training opportunities that Young Eagles provide. I know we have a lot of folks from EAA that have talked about that. Really important. And then my own personal story of a career opportunity. The little kid in the seat is my daughter. She had the opportunity to be exposed to aviation at Vermont airports. She decided to pursue flight training as her career and flying as her career. And this is her and her flight training. And then finally, she is now Rutland Vermont's newest flight instructor. So yeah, pretty proud of her. Thank you very much. I hope you see the value that, aviation has in creating equitable outcomes for Vermonters across the spectrum and how vital and important a resource this is for us. Thank you very much.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Thanks, Jeff.

[Representative Matt Walker (Chair, House Transportation Committee)]: My daughter is also a pilot. She flew a plane solo before she drove a car.

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: Proud dad.

[George Coy (Franklin County Airport; former VT legislator)]: Proud dad.

[Representative Matt Walker (Chair, House Transportation Committee)]: And Beth, you're awesome. The stuff if you're not inspired by what Beth and the team at Habitat have done, I don't think you have

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: a soul.

[Representative Matt Walker (Chair, House Transportation Committee)]: Every time I go there, I leave inspired. And Toby, the work you guys are doing up north is awesome. So I'm from Vermont. I was introduced to aviation at Franklin County Airport with George Coy, who does what a lot of the aviators in this room do, which is they just embrace sharing aviation with people. And for me, it was an inspiration.

[Kyle Clark (Founder/CEO, Beta Technologies)]: And it gave me a career path. It gave me a dedicated focused purpose of changing the way people fly for the better. And that was the inception of Beta Technologies. I'm a flight instructor. I fly all the time. I had to tell the people of Beta not to come today because, there were upwards of a thousand people who wanted to show up here today. But we wanted to make sure that that didn't overwhelm the diversity and the and the balance of the state that has an amazing aviation culture. And it depends on the airports, the infrastructure, the weather reporting, the communities around it, the training schools, the tech schools that bring people together around aviation. And we're well aware it's only one form of transportation, but it's a really special form of transportation. Because in aviation, when the IT doesn't work, a pilot keeps going.

[Chuck Suss (Bennington, VT)]: Yes.

[Kyle Clark (Founder/CEO, Beta Technologies)]: They they work through the adversity. It's a it's a place where there's little sense of humor for, for lack of rigor, whether you're a technician, an engineer, or a pilot. There it's a it's a it's a unforgiving pursuit, but it's a very, very proud pursuit for a lot of people. So at Beta, we've we've brought in about $2,700,000,000 of investment to this state. We haven't spent all that money yet. We spent about half of it. We built my wife here, my beautiful wife Katie has built facilities that are welcoming to people. We brought thousands of students through our facilities. They've flown the simulators. They've gotten inspired by the work that we're doing.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: She's also on my board.

[Kyle Clark (Founder/CEO, Beta Technologies)]: She's also on Habitat for Aviation board. And we've set up a culture of inclusion and inspiration at Beta for everybody who wants to get in technical pursuits. It's not just engineers. It's not just pilots. People supporting the entire, the entire, world. I I think one of the things I wanna make sure that it's clear to to to the folks, the public servants here that are taking good care of our state is that in Little Vermont, we are leading the future of aviation. Last year, we opened up the Paris Air Show, and that is a hard thing to do.

[Unidentified female facilitator (Habitat for Aviation)]: That's crazy.

[Kyle Clark (Founder/CEO, Beta Technologies)]: This is against Boeing and Embraer and Airbus, and we got selected to open the Paris Air Show. Just yesterday, I met with the king of England. He he he comes to a table with Austin Martin and American Airlines and Bank of America and spent all the time learning about what we're doing in Vermont. And then he made a commitment to send a part of his air force over here to fly with us. And we flew with the Royal Mail through Scotland. We are we have a major dent. We have set the world records for speed, for cargo capacity, and for range for electric aircraft. And why that's so important is that if we don't do anything about abating and and and I love every pilot in this room, but we operate in an area of cognitive dissonance from the environmental impact of aviation today. But we're gonna change that. We're changing it right now. Tyler here at Beta led a charge to convert our training fleet to unleaded fuel and electric planes. We now have the largest training fleet of electric planes in the world in Burlington. And Doyle, where's Doyle? Chris Doyle. He's the man. He's moving he's moving a a subset of those electric planes to Montpelier and extending our flight school out to Montpelier. We already have a presence up in Franklin County, and we're expanding hopefully out to Caledonia. There's they we're expanding through the state, and I think we're doing it in a really thoughtful way. And, frankly, we're not getting dragged down by some of the expectations of legacy aerospace. And this doesn't end with small airplanes. Just yesterday as well, this is the morning in Cincinnati, I got to speak to 13,000 engineers at GE Aerospace. 75% of the commercial aviation planes that take off are flown with GE engines. And they looked around the whole world, and they put $350,000,000 into beta. And they said, we want you to show us how to incorporate electrification through hybridization first to reduce the fuel burn of passenger jets throughout the whole world. 75% of the engines come on, Airbus, Boeing, Embraer. We're putting the technology into those engines if we do this right. So I think that we have an outsized opportunity. Vermont has always punched above its weight, whether it be in the Olympics or leading the charge for social quality. But here, we're doing it in aviation and technology. And the people in this room are all contributing in a special way. They're contributing, course, at Beta Technologies. They're contributing by inspiring the next wave of people that are coming in through education at Vermont State University and all of the other tech schools.

[Alastair Crawford (Springfield Airport Commission)]: I went to Essex Tech Center,

[Kyle Clark (Founder/CEO, Beta Technologies)]: and and that's where I was inspired by technology, and George Coy inspired me with aviation. That's happening throughout the state. So thank you for the attention to our airports, to the infrastructure, to the investment in, creating the future of flight here in Vermont.

[Jeff Distasio (Pilot; volunteer EMT, Londonderry Rescue)]: Hi,

[George Coy (Franklin County Airport; former VT legislator)]: I'm George Coit. I've been a business owner here. Hi, I'm George Coy. I've been a business owner here at the Franklin County Airport for the last thirty years. I've been a pilot, a flight instructor, an airplane mechanic and still doing it in my 80. I got back in deviation after leaving politics back in the day served two terms in the house and one in the senate. We have a flying club here. We have five airplanes and the people that we rent to could be student pilots with an instructor or they just rent an airplane to go fly once in a while because they have a pilot's license. Aviation is generally a pretty expensive operation, but we maintain our own airplanes and we often maintain them with the help of young people who want to learn to work on airplanes. It keeps the cost down, so we have the most cost effective airplanes running in Vermont. Young people come in and learn to work on airplanes move on towards getting their mechanics license or going to engineering degrees because they got their hands on experience here. We've been very active in teaching young people to fly through the EAA chapter. We've had 19 people who have gotten their pilot's license either during high school or just right after high school and we've done it because we were affordable and worked through the EAA chapter. People think that have to be millionaires to own an airplane but it's cheaper to have a small airplane than it is to have a boat in many cases. When I ran the FBO before turning over to my son through now we've had about 18 people employed here on and off over the years and right now 11 people here at the airport make their living. None of us have became millionaires out of this you know. In closing I just want to say that general aviation has been an important part of my life and I really enjoyed doing it.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Thank you.

[Alastair Crawford (Springfield Airport Commission)]: Great on time.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: I know some of you have to go at ten. We can stay for questions or if you wanted to see the one other video we've had. You want to see another video?

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: You're leaving? Five minutes.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Oh, we have another five minutes?

[Silas [last name unknown] (Beta flight test maintenance; pilot)]: Hi, I'm Silas. I'm 23 years old. I'm from, Callis, Vermont. Ever since I was 10 years old, I knew I wanted to be a pilot. It was after I took my first discovery flight at the Burlington Airport, and I just got hooked on it. Later on, as I got older, I discovered more of the aviation community. So at the Sugarbush Airport, I was part of their line crew program, which was my first real job experience. Basically, I would work for a day at the airport, helping with launching gliders. For each day of work at the airport, I would get one free flight lesson. The minimum age to solo a glider is 14. I soloed at 15, like a week after I got my junior driver's license. My first introduction to the Franklin County Airport was when I got old enough to start really pursuing flight training. I was about 17 and I went to the monthly pancake breakfast and I met the community there. They gave me all the support that I needed to get in the air and start training. After my flight lessons, I would stay late and work with George in his hangar and learn how to fix airplanes, learn more about how they work. I thought it would make me a better pilot and it also became something that I also enjoy even now I've made a career out of it here at Beta. So I'm on the flight test maintenance team. Work on airplanes, and I implement the changes that engineer to the airplane, and then I assist with flight testing on those airplanes. Growing up knowing that I wanted to be a pilot, I always figured that I would have to leave Vermont and go somewhere where there were bigger opportunities like that. And I'm very happily wrong about that. It's nice to not have to leave your community and leave your support system behind to go pursue a career in some random place. It's nice to stay with your people. From an early age, aviation taught me what hard work can get you. General aviation is important, especially to young people, because it can give them a passion and a direction and a career path along with the thriving community behind it that's ready to support them through every step and that is something that is not easy to find sometimes. So I'm incredibly grateful for everything that the aviation community has given me in in all of the different airports that I've been a part of, and I would not be anywhere near as successful in my career if it wasn't for their contributions.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Thank you very much.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: We do have for me, but the house is much in the

[Beth White (Founder, Habitat for Aviation)]: Thank you so much for this opportunity. And join us for cookies this afternoon. Room 10, 02:00, they're homemade from a young couple to Lou LaGuthrie and Owen Streeter.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation Committee)]: Thank you so much. You know how to appeal to us right now.

[Robin Gillian (Director, VTSU Aviation; Chief Flight Instructor, Vermont Flight Academy)]: Right in the