Press Release: VFS Announces 2025-2026 Board of Directors

Fairfax, Virginia, USA, July 3, 2025  — The Vertical Flight Society, the world’s leading non- profit dedicated to advancing vertical flight, is pleased to announce its Board of Directors for 2025-2026.

The following members were elected to the Board’s Executive Committee for an additional one- year term of July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026:

• Chair: Kathleen “KJ” Jolivette, Vice President/General Manager, Boeing Vertical Lift
• President: David Shilliday, Vice President/General Manager, AAM, Honeywell
• Secretary/Treasurer: Jason Hurst, Executive Vice President of Engineering, Bell Textron

VFS members in half of its ten regions elected or re-elected regional directors and vice- presidents for the two-year term of July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2027. (Those new to the Board are marked with an asterisk.)

VFS Board of Directors

Asia-Australia Region (all countries in Asia and Oceania)

• Vice President: Dr. Arvind Sinha, University of Melbourne, Australia
• Director: Dr. James Wang*, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Europe-Africa Region (members in Europe and Africa)

• Vice President: Luca Medici, Leonardo Helicopters
• Regional Director: Arnaud Le Pape, ONERA

U.S. Midwest Region (members in the Dayton and St Louis Chapters)

• Vice President: Dr. Charlie Svoboda, Jr., The Boeing Company
• Director: Vacant

US Northeast Region (members in the East New England, Stratford)

• Vice President: Usman Asif, Sikorsky, A Lockheed Martin Company
• Director: Steve Schmidt, Sikorsky, A Lockheed Martin Company

U.S. Southern Region (members in the Redstone, Atlanta, and South Florida Chapters)

• Vice President: Bill McCandless, Army PEO Aviation
• Director: JVR Prasad, Georgia Tech

Other elected members of the Board of Directors, who will continue to serve until June 30, 2026, are as follows:

Americas Region (Canada, Central America and South America)

• Vice President: Thuva Senthilnathan, Bell Textron
• Regional Director: Derek Gowanlock, National Research Council

U.S. Mideast Region (Philadelphia and surrounding areas)

• Vice President: Keith Conaron, The Boeing Company
• Regional Director: Greg Walsh, The Boeing Company

U.S. Southeast Region (Aberdeen, Federal City, Patuxent River, Hampton Roads and surrounding areas)

• Vice President: Dr. Rajneesh Singh, US Army DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory
• Regional Director: Dr. James Stephenson, US Army DEVCOM, Aviation & Missile Center

U.S. Southwest Region (Southwest Chapter and all surrounding areas)

• Vice President: Bryan Baskin, Bell Textron
• Regional Director: Christos Bais, Bell Textron

U.S. Western Region (SoCal, San Francisco and Arizona Chapters, and all surrounding areas)

• Vice President: Dr. Colin Theodore, NASA Ames Research Center
• Regional Director: Gloria Randecker, The Boeing Company

In addition, the current appointed (voting) members of the VFS Board of Directors are:

• Technical Director: Dr. Al Brand, Bell Textron
• Appointed Director: Matteo Ragazzi, Leonardo
• Appointed Director: Olivier Honnorat, Airbus
• Appointed Director: Bill Lewis, Tennessee Technical Test Team

Founded as the American Helicopter Society in 1943, the Vertical Flight Society is the global non- profit society for engineers, scientists and others working on vertical flight technology. For more than 82 years, the Society has led technical, safety, advocacy and other important initiatives, and has been the primary forum for interchange of information on vertical flight technology

VFS is @VTOLsociety on social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Vimeo and YouTube, and has @ElectricVTOL channels on Facebook.

This press release is also available as a pdf. 

The Vertical Flight Society
2700 Prosperity Ave, Suite 275, Fairfax, VA 22031 USA
+1-703-684-6777 | staff@vtol.org | www.vtol.org