Campaign Statement

The following is a Campaign Statement that I prepared for inclusion in District X Club Newsletters. Please pass it on to your Newsletter Editor so that it can be run in your newsletter prior to our September election.


Campaign Statement from Lawrence Tougas

Greetings,

I want to introduce myself to you so that you can make an informed decision when you cast your vote for AMA District X Vice-President this September.

I was a candidate in last year’s District X election. I ran against our interim Vice-President Jim Giffin, who had been appointed by outgoing District Vice-President Rich Hanson. A lot of people told me I was crazy to run against the establishment; that there was no chance of breaking into the AMA Leadership as an outsider. Well I guess they were right because Jim won the election, but it turned out to be the closest election not only in the history of the District but in the entire history of the AMA which is something I am proud of. When the votes were tallied in a District with 28,000 members there was a 34 vote difference between Jim and I. It was a virtual tie but as I’ve told everyone those 34 votes did count and Jim was our new VP and I wished him all the best.

Normally Jim would be serving his three year term, but sadly one month into his term Jim passed away. We are now conducting a special election to determine who will lead District X.

I feel I am the best qualified candidate to serve as your Vice-President and I would like to give you some information on my background, goals, and the critical issues affecting the AMA as well as how to keep in touch with me so that you can decide for yourself who is best suited to be the next District X Vice-President.


Background

I have been a Design/Project Engineer for 23 years in the Aerospace Industry. I have worked in the Defense Industry, and am currently working at a major domestic airline. In Defense I designed parts for two missiles used in the “Star Wars” program, and produced parts for the Space Shuttle as well. In the airline industry on the maintenance side I have been the Primary Engineer, on flight control systems, aircraft interiors, and aircraft structure. On the Operations side I was the Operational Engineer on a wide-bodied aircraft, and as such worked with our Chief Pilots to maintain and modify the aircraft flight manual used by all of our pilots. During my career I have worked a number of long-term projects that required supervising multiple participants to ensure project goals and time lines were met. I believe that translates directly in to skills that an effective District Vice-President would need.

In addition I have owned and operated my own Video Production Company and understand the skills need to be a successful entrepreneur. I know how to market my products, which I think are the skills that our local clubs need to employ to market themselves to their communities to win and retain flying sites.

I’ve been modeling since I was a child. I’ve built and flew free flight, control line, and radio control models. I’ve spent my whole life enthralled by all aspects of aviation. It was this love of aviation that prompted me to secure a Bachelor’s of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of California. I also have a Commercial Multi-Engine Pilot’s License with Instrument Privileges.


Goals

There are three primary goals that I will pursue as your District X Vice-President. First is to help clubs keep and obtain new fields. Next is to leverage the power of the Internet to cover District events and issues of interest to the membership. Last and certainly not least I would like to develop an AMA owned field in District X for the benefit of our membership.


Flying Fields

Modeling begins and ends with a place to fly. That is why my top goal will be to help keep and find new fields. Modelers are a self-reliant group who typically handle all of their needs amongst themselves without asking for others to help. We need to not be hesitant to ask for support. We need to build ties with our community

My ideas about helping clubs in this area revolve around being proactive. I believe the most important Officer in a club is not the President or Treasurer, but the Community Relations Officer. If your club doesn’t have one you should seriously consider electing one. This position would be responsible for your clubs dealings with your neighbors and if you’re on public land the entity that controls it or on private land, your landlord. This person should be a real schmoozer, someone who has the ability to charm our neighbors and the decision makers who control our field’s futures.

Having a Community Relations Officer puts one name and number in place for your neighbors to contact if they have concerns. This person could organize your Community Appreciation day. One club in District X the Livermore Flying Electrons goes around the surrounding neighborhood knocking on doors and leaving fliers inviting their neighbors to join them at their field. While there they serve a free lunch and provide demonstrations as well as opportunities to try flying on a buddy box and simulators. The LFE’s have reported to me the great success they’ve had because they got out, knocked on doors and made the first move to introduce themselves.

The Community Relations Officer would issue press releases to alert your news outlets of the positive actions your club has accomplished and events the public can attend. Recently the Trabuco RC Flyers in Orange County California had a community day and it was covered both before the event and after the event by the Orange County Register. This is a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper that is one of the most significant in Southern California. The reason they were covered was because they made it a priority and they kept in constant contact with a reporter at the paper, their hard work paid off.

Perhaps the most important thing your Community Relations Officer would do is maintain the club’s relationship with your public officials that control your land or a landlord on private land. This is an election year. In many parts of our District the Decision makers that control your field are up for election. Clubs can do several things to take advantage of the opportunities that this presents. Many times we feel that the only thing that we can offer a candidate is money, while it is true that money talks we also have a valuable resource, manpower. Running a local campaign takes a lot of volunteer manpower and we should be aligning ourselves with candidates that are friendly to our cause and help elect them. They need people to put up signs, go door to door asking for votes and leaving literature and manning phone banks calling voters asking them to vote for the candidate. If your club can deliver that kind of help the Official will remember it and take your call when you need to talk to them and be sympathetic to you when others raise issues about your field.

Many clubs run fund raisers, why not choose a charity that is important to your public officials or landlord and involve them in the pictures and press releases detailing the money raised or help provided. If we are going to help our community we should double up by selecting a beneficiary that our field’s decision makers support.

Find out the Birthdays of these decision makers and acknowledge them with a card from the club. Another way to keep in touch is to take them out to lunch on an on-going basis as a friendly informal meeting, not necessarily to bring up issues each time but to just keep an open line of communication. If you have a Christmas banquet you should invite the decision makers and their significant others to be guests of the club.

I have a lot of ideas in this area and it is one of the reasons I want to move coverage of events from our District X column in the magazine to the Internet and use the magazine space to discuss the techniques that clubs have found successful to protect their fields.

The Internet

We can do a better job of covering District events than we currently do in the magazine column. Last year while I was campaigning I pointed out the opportunities that we were missing by having such a static website for District X, and how we could better cover events on the Internet. I discussed how the Internet gives us unlimited space. We can publish color photos, and even video of the events. Imagine a District wide mailing list that alerts members when new information is published. A club could have a weekend event, write it up Sunday night and it could be on-line Monday morning for members to read with their morning coffee.

The District X establishment did nothing of mention regarding the Internet until they came within 34 votes of losing their control over the District. Suddenly we have a newsletter. I think it’s well produced and a good read but you have to ask yourself, if it didn’t exist until the closest election in AMA history happened; what is their long-term commitment to it? I believe its primary purpose is to campaign for the election and when the election is over it will die out.

I have demonstrated I am firmly committed to use of the Internet. For over a year I’ve been publishing my own site;

http://ama-district-x-election.blogspot.com/

As your District Vice-President I will publish a similar website covering past District events, alerting members to upcoming events, create a District Hall of Fame to give the many deserving members of our District who go above and beyond the recognition they deserve. We can publish building and flying articles and use it as a call to arms when one of our clubs is threatened. Members will be able to subscribe to email alerts that will tell them when new articles have been published so they can read about them as soon as they are on-line. The possibilities are literally endless, and I look forward to doing much more than has been done in the past and in a more timely manner than what we are currently doing.


West Coast AMA Flying Site

I believe that the majority of our members should have access to an AMA owned and operated field like the one we have in Muncie Indiana. Past District X Vice-Presidents have championed a West Coast Flying Site, I believe it is time to take up the task and work until we have a site District X members can enjoy.

If we set a criteria that, say 75% of a District’s membership should be within a 2 day drive of an AMA owned facility, and we define a 2 day drive as 10 hours each day, certainly long but doable let’s take a look at what we have now.

Using Google maps with Muncie as our destination here are the drive times between various cities in Districts I-IX. Starting with Denver and moving around the map clockwise we have Denver at 18:46, Rapid City SD. 18:12, Bismarck ND.17:55, Minneapolis, MN. 11:19, Milwaukee, WI. 5:48, Detroit, MI. 4:09, Buffalo, NY. 7:38, Boston, MA. 14:44, Bangor, ME. 18:21, Philadelphia, PA. 10:29, Greenville, NC. 11:20, Charleston, SC. 11:57, Miami, FL.20:09, New Orleans, LA. 13:47, and Houston, TX. 18:13

Now let’s look at Districts X and XI. Starting at Tucson, AZ. driving times are 29:00, Phoenix, AZ. 29:00, San Diego, CA. 34:00, Los Angeles, CA. 34:00, Las Vegas, NV. 31:00, San Francisco, CA. 37:00, Eugene, OR. 38:00, Seattle, WA. 36:00, Billings, MT. 23:40, and Salt Lake City, UT. 25:00.

I have not decided where our AMA West flying site should be, in fact I’ve said before that a group of modelers working on the question taking into account geographic center of the district, population center of the district, a welcoming city, accommodations for visitors and more should be considered. That being said let’s compare the District X, and XI cities to the city chose last time this effort was pursued, Visalia, CA. The driving time from those same DX and XI cities to Visalia are, Tucson, AZ. 11:01, Phoenix, AZ. 9:04, San Diego, CA. 5:11, Los Angeles, CA. 3:13, Las Vegas, NV. 6:03, San Francisco, CA. 3:57, Eugene, OR. 11:02, Seattle, WA. 15:49,Billings, MT. 21:14, and Salt Lake City, UT. 12:34.

So you can see most of the Midwest, Eastern Seaboard, and South is within our definition of a 2 day drive to Muncie, while none of the cities in Districts X and XI are. With the addition of only one additional site we can serve all AMA members in a more equitable fashion.

We would have a site available to host major competitions, a portion of the Nats could rotate out to the west coast as has been done in the past, and large fun flys like the Joe Nall event would be possible. We would have a site that will be a capital asset for the AMA and since land is at a 10 plus year low we should see long term appreciation of this asset. As I meet members on my visits around the District easily 9 out of 10 people find the idea of an AMA West site exciting, and something that they would support.

My opponent has stated that he will not push for a West Coast flying site. He even went as far as to call it a, “BAD idea.” To be honest with you I just don’t understand that way of thinking. This is something that the majority of members I meet feel is a good idea. They look at how they are limited by distance from using the Muncie property and see a west coast flying site as something to point to as a tangible benefit from the AMA, for the dues they pay. As your District Vice President I think it is a worthy goal and one I will pursue. Speaking of goals, Wayne Gretzky the famous hockey player once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.” As your District Vice-President this is one shot I will take for you.


Critical Issues


Small Unmaned Aircraft System NPRM

I want to touch on the Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) FAA rule making that has the potential to affect our sport. This is the most critical issue modelers have faced in over a decade; we need to marshal all of our assets to respond to the upcoming FAA Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). As an Aeronautical Engineer a significant part of my job is responding to NPRM’s, we need to be prepared to demonstrate to the FAA that any alternate rules we proposed will provide the same or higher level of safety than the wording in the NPRM. I do not believe the FAA has any desire to harm modeling, in fact I’m sure a higher than average percentage of FAA staff have been or are modelers themselves, but we need to be ready to respond. As your District Vice-President I will bring my experience to bear on protecting your right to enjoy modeling and pass it on to the next generation.

Meeting the Members

I have made it a priority to get out and meet with members all over our District. One of the advantages I have that helps me to travel the District is that I work for a major airline and enjoy employee pass travel privileges. This has allowed me to travel up and down California, as well as out to Arizona, and Utah. I’ve covered a lot of miles, including my upcoming trip to an event on Ford Island on Oahu, I’ll have clocked over 12,000 miles on the road meeting members. I will be at events in Nevada too before the election is over. Everywhere I go I hear the same thing, members simply are not meeting our District Vice-President and Associate Vice-Presidents as often as they would like. I am committing to continuing to travel the District as your Vice-President and I will meet with my Associate Vice-Presidents as soon as I am elected so that we can map out the major events in the District and build a plan so that myself or one of my Associate Vice-Presidents will be at these events to show the flag, meet the members and let you know that you do matter.

How to Stay In Touch

There are several ways for you to stay in touch with me. First you can visit my website it is at;

http://ama-district-x-election.blogspot.com/

I send out an email discussing events I have attended or am planning to attend and items of note. It comes out about once a week to a growing number of District X members. If you would like to be added to the list please send an email to;

AMADistrictXElection@gmail.com

Finally I can’t do this all by myself, I need members who support me to represent me at their club. All you really need to do is bring up the subject of the election and let people know where they can find out more about me. You can share this letter with them and discuss the issues raised in it and let them know why you support me. The most important thing you can do is remind them to vote. Last year we had 15% of eligible voters return their ballots, that is high for an AMA election but we can and will do better this year. If you would like to represent me at your club send me an email and I will add you to a special email list that will allow you to receive election bulletins.

Ultimately the members of District X will choose the candidate that they feel is best qualified to be elected. If the Members choose me I would consider it an honor to serve District X as their Vice-President.

I wish you all the best, and may you have many safe, and happy landings.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Tougas
AMA 232



P.S. You will receive your ballot with your AMA renewal in September. The ballot is a post card that you simply detach, mark your choice and drop in the mail, it even has the postage on it for your convenience. Do not, I repeat do not send your ballot with your dues renewal they go to two different places and if you send your ballot with your dues your vote will be invalidated.

Please cast your vote for Lawrence Tougas today.