Cirrus Co-Founder Now Heads Kestrel Aircraft Company

Alan Klapmeier will be the featured speaker at the Aero Club on New England (ACONE) Awards and Business-meeting luncheon Friday, April 15 at the Somerset Club in Boston.

Klapmeier, the co-founder of Cirrus Aircraft, is now CEO of Kestrel Aircraft Company, which has signed a lease on a 170,000-square-foot building at the soon-to-close Brunswick Naval Air Station. The Kestrel is a large-cabin composite single, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A. According to Klapmeier, project development is expected to cost a total of $100 million and employ some 300 people.

Klapmeier serves on several industry boards, including the GA Team 2000 Board of Directors, the AOPA Air Safety Foundation Board of Visitors and the Board of Directors of the Small Aircraft Manufacturers Association (SAMA), General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and Build a Plane (BAP). He has been a licensed pilot for more than 20 years and holds degrees in physics and economics from Ripon College in Wisconsin.

The 2011 Presidential Medal Award will be presented to Jack W. Ferns of Fern's Aviation, a fixed-base operation at Concord Municipal Airport. Besides running the FBO, Ferns was also Director of the New Hampshire Division of Aeronautics. During that tour of duty, Jack became first the secretary and then the president of the National Association of State Aviation Officials where he oversaw the state's transportation needs at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.

Kestrel

Jack has, for many years, been the New Hampshire representative in support of the Aero Club of New England's State Awards Program.

The Honored Member Award will be presented (in Absentia) to Reese Dill, Engineer, acrobatic aviator, Boston QB and Past President of the Aero Club of New England. Reese Dill had been Director of the Club, and was strongly supportive of ACONE programs.

Although Reese "has gone west" in his beloved T-6 during an accident in the fall of 2010, ACONE appreciates Reese Dill's devotion and effort in helping to make ACONE the success it has become.

FMI: www.ACONE.org