To commemorate NAAA’s 50th anniversary, the association has been exploring its history through a series of articles in Agricultural Aviation and in a documentary that will premiere at our annual convention in Long Beach, Calif., in December. In advance of the documentary, NAAA has produced a series of 50th anniversary “flashback” segments that highlight key moments and demonstrate why we need a strong national association for agricultural aviators. For our first flashback, NAAA’s inaugural president, Dick Reade, explains how it all began.

NAAA members and all aerial applicators owe a debt of gratitude to its founding fathers for the foresight they demonstrated in the mid-1960s. At that time, a perfect storm of new regulations confronted the aerial application industry, so Reade and a number of other visionaries established NAAA in 1966 as a national organization focused solely on advocating aerial application’s interests to the public, Congress and regulatory agencies. Federal agencies that had taken an interest in agricultural aviation included the newly formed EPA and the FAA as it was beginning to enforce its new Part 137 rules governing agricultural aircraft operations in the United States.

NAAA’s roots are one of several aspects that will be covered in our upcoming documentary. The informative video will also explore key drivers of the association’s development and growth over the course of NAAA’s history, as well as the essence of what makes NAAA NAAA. Thirty-two subjects were interviewed for the documentary, including numerous past presidents—most notably Reade, NAAA’s first president—and NAAA’s 50th and current president, Brenda Watts.

You can catch the world premiere of the NAAA documentary on Dec. 6 at the 2016 convention’s General Session in Long Beach. After the video, a panel of NAAA past presidents and industry leaders will expound on NAAA’s origins, successes and future. In that same vein, following the panelists, futurist Bob Treadway will help attendees envision what lies ahead for the agricultural aviation industry in the years to come.