2017tougasEVP
2017 Executive Vice President
Lawrence Tougas
Fairfield, California
The AMA has lost its way.
The AMA has stopped listening to its members.
The AMA was founded by traditional Modelers and needs to remember that.
If you agree then please vote for me Lawrence Tougas to be the next Executive Vice President (EVP) of the AMA.
Last year I ran for President of the AMA on a similar platform. I believed then and I believe now that the majority of members in the AMA have been and always will be traditional modelers; whom I define as pilots of fixed and rotary wing models whether they be free flight, control line, or radio controlled. This is opposed to the newest segment of modeling, drone modeling.
I do not believe we should ban drone modelers from the AMA, far from that, I think as long as they fly responsibly and follow our safety code they are welcome to join. My issue is the irresponsible drone modelers who have caught the media’s attention. Their actions must be stopped before more harm is done.
The number of drone modelers in the AMA has plateaued at 8% of total membership. As the current District X VP I have access to our membership numbers and have been observing this trend for some time. One issue I see is that we spend much more than 8% of our staff’s time on issues associated with drone modeling. The Executive Council has spent the last several years addressing drone issues well out of proportion to 8% of our time.
I think there should be more or less a balance of our time and resources spent between the various modeling disciplines. The claim that drone modeling will be a great source of future membership is simply not being reflected in our membership data. That fact has to be recognized and the AMA’s time and money need to be rebalanced to support our core constituency which is overwhelmingly traditional modelers. Elect me as your EVP and I will make that my goal.
I have served as the AMA’s District X Vice President for almost 7 years. During this time I have worked on our Finance, Election and Insurance Committees. During my time on the Executive Council there have been times when I have disagreed with programs that we were developing. When those times come I am not afraid to speak truth to power. You can count on me to keep what is best for our membership as my number one priority.
I have made it a point to travel the district attending events and meetings with as many clubs as possible. I fly competitively. I currently fly Precision Aerobatics in the Advanced class and have attended the last 4 NATS. I have spent 26 years working as an Engineer with a major U.S. airline. During that time I have dealt with the FAA extensively. I have over 23 years of experience in the FAA rulemaking process. I am the only candidate with this much experience with the FAA.
Please follow my campaign at, www.tougas4evp.com.
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Sincerely,
Lawrence Tougas
AMA 232
P.S. Remember if you want the AMA to be balanced in the way it treats its members then I am the right choice for AMA EVP.