NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen has been inducted into the San Diego Air & Space Museum's International Air & Space Hall of Fame, in recognition of his decades of contributions to the aviation and aerospace industry.

“It is an enormous privilege to be part of the aviation community, and to be inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame is an honour beyond description,” says Bolen.

Museum president and CEO James Kidrick adds: “The International Air & Space Hall of Fame represents those elite leaders and organisations that have made lasting contributions regarding aviation and space and who will be remembered as visionaries and risk takers, pioneers unwilling to live with the status quo knowing there can be better and more innovative solutions to even the most complex challenges. Ed Bolen is one of those.”

Bolen has led the NBAA since 2004, and prior to that was president and CEO of GAMA for eight years, elected 1996, having joined in 1995 as senior vice president and general counsel.

In 2001, he was appointed by President Bush to serve as a member of the Commission on the Future of the US Aerospace Industry. He was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the US Senate to serve as a member of the Management Advisory Council to the FAA, which he chaired from 2000 to 2004.

Bolen is a member of the board of directors of the National Aeronautic Association, and he serves on the aviation advisory board of the Mitre Corporation, a federally funded research and development business. He is also a former chair of RTCA and member of the aeronautics and space engineering board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Other 2021 inductees include: space shuttle commander Eileen Collins; astronaut Charlie Duke; Federal Express; former president and executive vice president of General Dynamics Bryan Moss; Dee O'Hara, the first aerospace nurse assigned to NASA's first seven astronauts; and the Commemorative Air Force.