{"id":26440,"date":"2023-08-21T14:25:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T14:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=26440"},"modified":"2023-08-22T12:05:16","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T12:05:16","slug":"lisa-edwards-positions-north-carolina-airports-association-for-continued-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/news\/airports\/lisa-edwards-positions-north-carolina-airports-association-for-continued-success\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Lisa Edwards Positions North Carolina Airports Association for Continued Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo above – From left are, Lisa Edwards, Ellen Heywood, Asheville Regional Airport, Patricia Campbell, Fayetteville Regional Airport and Hope Morton, NC Division of Aviation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Lisa Edwards finishes up her last year with the North\nCarolina Airports Association (NCAA) in a consulting role, she is experiencing\nbittersweet feelings. Her tenure with the Association began back in 2007 with\nher first conference taking place in Asheville in 2008. As she finishes up her\ncareer with the association her last conference will be held in the same community\nwhere it all began.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lisa Edwards<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seemed appropriate that the decision on where my\noutgoing conference would be was to come full circle to where my first\nconference was and the city that first brought us to the Carolinas,\u201d says Lisa.\n\u201cIt is bittersweet as I retire from this job, but I know that because I will\ncontinue to travel with my husband that it will not be the last time that I see\nthe many friends that we have made in this great industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What set things in motion for Lisa\u2019s involvement in\nassociation management, was when her husband, Dave took the position as airport\ndirector at AVL. \u201cWe moved to Asheville with our youngest daughter who was in\nthe middle of her eighth-grade year.  Not\nknowing anyone in the community, we chose for me to take a hiatus from my\ncareer in the medical field and focus on making sure our daughter could be\ninvolved in sports as she had been,\u201d said Lisa. \u201cI was very excited about this\nopportunity as I had gone back to work after each child and had never been a\nstay-at-home mom before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisa first became aware of the association because of her\nhusband\u2019s involvement in NCAA. Unfortunately, the Association\u2019s business\nmanager at the time needed to resign for medical reasons, and due to the\nurgency of the vacancy, the board was asked if they knew of anyone that might\nbe interested. \u201cOur daughter was in her senior year of high school when the\nNCAA position became open,\u201d said Lisa. \u201cMy husband thought I would be\ninterested as we soon would be empty nesters and I could begin traveling with\nhim allowing me to connect more with the industry.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisa did express her interest and applied for the position.\nHer husband, who was on the NCAA board at the time, removed himself from any\nconversations related to hiring. \u201cI was interviewed in Greensboro, NC by Brad\nWhited, Mickie Elmore, and Toney Wilder and hired in 2007,\u201d Lisa recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since her hiring Lisa has been instrumental in the growth\nand success of the Association. “There is no real way to measure Lisa’s\ncontribution to NC Airports,\u201d said Richard Walls, with WE Engineering. \u201cShe has\nbeen the heartbeat of the organization for a long time. Certainly, she leaves\nthe organization substantially better than before.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/www.we-engineering.com\/<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even airport officials that are relatively new to North\nCarolina recognize her contributions. \u201cLisa Edwards is the person that kept the\nNorth Carolina Airports Association on track,\u201d said Kim W. (Bill) Hopper,\nExecutive Director of the Pitt Greenville Airport Authority. \u201cBeing here for\n4-1\/2 years, I am relatively a new guy with the North Carolina airports. I\nquickly learned that she is one of the best resources for getting information\nwhen it comes to the airport management profession in this state.\u201d   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having spent 16 years with the Association, there have been\nmany accomplishments and highlights for Lisa. \u201cFor me it\u2019s the people in the\naviation industry. They are just like family, and I look forward to seeing\nfriends at every conference and aviation events I have been so fortunate to\nattend,\u201d said Lisa. \u201cI think my biggest accomplishment has been growing the\nassociation membership and watching the size of the conference double to just\nshy of 500 attendees.\u201d In addition, Lisa feels that the level of professionalism\nof the conference has been raised with high-quality sessions and speakers. The\nsupport of NCAA membership and participants has been tremendous, and she has\ntried to let each member, sponsor, and exhibitor know how much they were\nappreciated. \u201cI always recognized that it was a group effort, and I could not\nhave had the success without their support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another accomplishment was watching the Educational\nFoundation grow through fundraisers including the golf tournament Red Tee and\nmulligan fundraiser, and running a silent auction at the conference which now\nenables the foundation to provide for 3 scholarships annually. \u201cMeeting these\nstudents and their families has been rewarding,\u201d said Lisa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up Lisa thought she might be a nurse because she\nenjoyed helping people. At age 15 she was already working in a hospital in the\nmedical records department. When she first met her future husband, he was\nalready flying. \u201cHis dad was a pilot, and they had a family plane; a Navion. I\nknew that if we were to be married that aviation would be in our life to some\nextent,\u201d said Lisa.  \u201cI never dreamed we\nwould be where we are today, and it has been a wonderful life for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisa is making sure she leaves NCAA in good hands by working\nalongside Emily Winberg, who has stepped into the position as association\nbusiness manager. \u201cI have provided Emily with an administrative guidebook,\nwelcomed her into our home for 2 separate weeks to work one on one during the\nplanning of the 2023 conference, and will provide Emily with the guidance she\nneeds through June 2024 to continue the success of this great association,\u201d\nsaid Lisa. \u201cWhen I began back in 2007, we had an Excel spreadsheet for\nmembership tracking as well as financials, emails were done without the\nassistance of mass email services and the conference was of a smaller scale,\u201d\nrecalled Lisa. Due to the urgency of her predecessor leaving, Lisa was not able\nto have a mentor for this role. \u201cAs a leader in my previous work experience, I\nwas motivated to learn and step right in,\u201d said Lisa. The financials are now in\nQuickBooks, the memberships, conference registrations, and scholarship fund are\nnow all online and everything is easily tracked, and the membership can be\nemailed through Mailchimp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For Lisa, the aviation family extends beyond state lines.\nOver the years she has had the opportunity to attend many conferences in the\nindustry such as AAAE, ACI-North America and ACI World, ACC, the South Carolina\nAirports Association annual conference and very early on Florida Airports\nCouncil. There are many other specialty conferences as well that she has\nattended as a guest with her husband. \u201cI certainly have benefited from the\nexperience of hearing various speakers, session topics as well as the opportunity\nof meeting those in the industry and the exhibitors in the exhibit halls,\u201d said\nLisa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have had the opportunity to speak to other state\nassociations and during COVID there were times where we collaborated on\ncontracts, strategies and other ideas to keep the associations going in a time\nwhere no one could get together in groups as we were all experiencing a time no\none had experienced before including venues.\u201d Lisa recalled that some of them\nwere within a week or two of running a conference when they were all shut down.\n\u201cThis was stressful and accounted for many reschedules and venue changes, but\nwe were successful in overcoming a very unfortunate time and turned it into a\npositive learning experience.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisa has watched her husband and others throughout their\ncareer in aviation and recognizes that it truly gets in your blood. \u201cThose\ninvolved in aviation have a true passion for it and it was exciting to be\ninvolved and to assist where I could.\u201d  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-airports","category-north-carolina"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lisa-1-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26440"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26482,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26440\/revisions\/26482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}