Photo above – From left are, Lisa Edwards, Ellen Heywood, Asheville Regional Airport, Patricia Campbell, Fayetteville Regional Airport and Hope Morton, NC Division of Aviation.
As Lisa Edwards finishes up her last year with the North Carolina Airports Association (NCAA) in a consulting role, she is experiencing bittersweet feelings. Her tenure with the Association began back in 2007 with her first conference taking place in Asheville in 2008. As she finishes up her career with the association her last conference will be held in the same community where it all began.
“It seemed appropriate that the decision on where my outgoing conference would be was to come full circle to where my first conference was and the city that first brought us to the Carolinas,” says Lisa. “It is bittersweet as I retire from this job, but I know that because I will continue to travel with my husband that it will not be the last time that I see the many friends that we have made in this great industry.”
What set things in motion for Lisa’s involvement in association management, was when her husband, Dave took the position as airport director at AVL. “We moved to Asheville with our youngest daughter who was in the middle of her eighth-grade year. Not knowing anyone in the community, we chose for me to take a hiatus from my career in the medical field and focus on making sure our daughter could be involved in sports as she had been,” said Lisa. “I was very excited about this opportunity as I had gone back to work after each child and had never been a stay-at-home mom before.”
Lisa first became aware of the association because of her husband’s involvement in NCAA. Unfortunately, the Association’s business manager at the time needed to resign for medical reasons, and due to the urgency of the vacancy, the board was asked if they knew of anyone that might be interested. “Our daughter was in her senior year of high school when the NCAA position became open,” said Lisa. “My husband thought I would be interested as we soon would be empty nesters and I could begin traveling with him allowing me to connect more with the industry.”
Lisa did express her interest and applied for the position. Her husband, who was on the NCAA board at the time, removed himself from any conversations related to hiring. “I was interviewed in Greensboro, NC by Brad Whited, Mickie Elmore, and Toney Wilder and hired in 2007,” Lisa recalled.
Since her hiring Lisa has been instrumental in the growth and success of the Association. “There is no real way to measure Lisa’s contribution to NC Airports,” said Richard Walls, with WE Engineering. “She has been the heartbeat of the organization for a long time. Certainly, she leaves the organization substantially better than before.”
Even airport officials that are relatively new to North Carolina recognize her contributions. “Lisa Edwards is the person that kept the North Carolina Airports Association on track,” said Kim W. (Bill) Hopper, Executive Director of the Pitt Greenville Airport Authority. “Being here for 4-1/2 years, I am relatively a new guy with the North Carolina airports. I quickly learned that she is one of the best resources for getting information when it comes to the airport management profession in this state.”
Having spent 16 years with the Association, there have been many accomplishments and highlights for Lisa. “For me it’s the people in the aviation industry. They are just like family, and I look forward to seeing friends at every conference and aviation events I have been so fortunate to attend,” said Lisa. “I think my biggest accomplishment has been growing the association membership and watching the size of the conference double to just shy of 500 attendees.” In addition, Lisa feels that the level of professionalism of the conference has been raised with high-quality sessions and speakers. The support of NCAA membership and participants has been tremendous, and she has tried to let each member, sponsor, and exhibitor know how much they were appreciated. “I always recognized that it was a group effort, and I could not have had the success without their support.”
Another accomplishment was watching the Educational Foundation grow through fundraisers including the golf tournament Red Tee and mulligan fundraiser, and running a silent auction at the conference which now enables the foundation to provide for 3 scholarships annually. “Meeting these students and their families has been rewarding,” said Lisa.
Growing up Lisa thought she might be a nurse because she enjoyed helping people. At age 15 she was already working in a hospital in the medical records department. When she first met her future husband, he was already flying. “His dad was a pilot, and they had a family plane; a Navion. I knew that if we were to be married that aviation would be in our life to some extent,” said Lisa. “I never dreamed we would be where we are today, and it has been a wonderful life for us.”
Lisa is making sure she leaves NCAA in good hands by working alongside Emily Winberg, who has stepped into the position as association business manager. “I have provided Emily with an administrative guidebook, welcomed her into our home for 2 separate weeks to work one on one during the planning of the 2023 conference, and will provide Emily with the guidance she needs through June 2024 to continue the success of this great association,” said Lisa. “When I began back in 2007, we had an Excel spreadsheet for membership tracking as well as financials, emails were done without the assistance of mass email services and the conference was of a smaller scale,” recalled Lisa. Due to the urgency of her predecessor leaving, Lisa was not able to have a mentor for this role. “As a leader in my previous work experience, I was motivated to learn and step right in,” said Lisa. The financials are now in QuickBooks, the memberships, conference registrations, and scholarship fund are now all online and everything is easily tracked, and the membership can be emailed through Mailchimp.
For Lisa, the aviation family extends beyond state lines. Over the years she has had the opportunity to attend many conferences in the industry such as AAAE, ACI-North America and ACI World, ACC, the South Carolina Airports Association annual conference and very early on Florida Airports Council. There are many other specialty conferences as well that she has attended as a guest with her husband. “I certainly have benefited from the experience of hearing various speakers, session topics as well as the opportunity of meeting those in the industry and the exhibitors in the exhibit halls,” said Lisa.
“I have had the opportunity to speak to other state associations and during COVID there were times where we collaborated on contracts, strategies and other ideas to keep the associations going in a time where no one could get together in groups as we were all experiencing a time no one had experienced before including venues.” Lisa recalled that some of them were within a week or two of running a conference when they were all shut down. “This was stressful and accounted for many reschedules and venue changes, but we were successful in overcoming a very unfortunate time and turned it into a positive learning experience.”
Lisa has watched her husband and others throughout their career in aviation and recognizes that it truly gets in your blood. “Those involved in aviation have a true passion for it and it was exciting to be involved and to assist where I could.”
