Outstanding Achievement & Leadership Award Recipient Named

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) will recognize Fred Barth, a past chairman and founding member of the NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers (S&D) Committee, with the Association's 2012 Schedulers & Dispatchers Outstanding Achievement & Leadership Award.

Created in 2008, the award recognizes individuals who have shared their outstanding business aviation industry expertise, provided extraordinary service, exhibited leadership and made significant contributions to the scheduling and dispatching function.

Barth, best remembered in the industry as the longtime flight operations control manager of AT&T's Aviation Division, was born and raised in Bethpage, N.Y., and grew up the son of a Grumman Aircraft family. In 1968, he joined the U.S. Air Force, and, in 1972, after a tour of duty in Vietnam, he was assigned to a strategic air command base in Michigan, working in base operations-dispatch.

In 1973, he joined Executive Air Fleet (current Jet Aviation Business Jets) in Teterboro, N.J., as a flight coordinator. In the next four years, he managed FAR Part 91 and 135 charter aircraft of Fortune 500 companies as well as earning his Associate of Arts degree. In 1977, he left Executive Air Fleet and began a 27-year commitment as the flight operations control manager of AT&T's Aviation Division out of Morristown, N.J. In 2004, Barth retired from AT&T but within months began to work again as a consultant and account manager to Wyvern Ltd. In 2008, he joined The Flight Department USA, working part-time as a flight operations specialist and transportation coordinator

Barth used his professional knowledge and skills as a ham radio operator to volunteer with the American Red Cross as an amateur radio emergency communications coordinator, deploying to the Gulf Coast for Hurricane Katrina. He provided volunteer support again in 2010 when he assisted CARE as a flights operations coordinator during the Haiti earthquake relief effort.

Now retired, Barth is a member of the Vernon, N.J., Township Office of Emergency Management, American Radio League and Sussex Airport (N.J.) Steering Committee–Sussex Co. Economic Development Partnership. He holds licenses as an FAA aircraft dispatcher, private pilot, and FCC amateur extra class.

Currently, he resides in Vernon, N.J., with his wife Janice. Today his main job is as grandfather and mentor to four-year-old Jackson, who is being schooled in all things airplane and ham radio, plus the occasional Lionel train.

Although Barth is unable to accept his award in person, his achievements will be recognized during the NBAA 23rd Annual Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference, to be held from January 15 to 18, 2012, at the San Diego Convention Center. For more information on the conference, visit www.nbaa.org/sdc.