Acting FAA administrator Robert Sturgell will be nominated by President Bush to fill that position for the next five years, the White House announced on Tuesday. Sturgell, 48, formerly was a senior policy advisor at the NTSB, flew for United Air Lines, and was an instructor at the Navy’s Top Gun Fighter Weapons School. He has been deputy FAA administrator since 2003. He is also an attorney and has practiced aviation law at the Washington, D.C., law firm Shaw Pittman. “Bobby has worked tirelessly to modernize our nation’s air traffic control system,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said. “He has over three decades of real world experience in the field.”
Now a Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves (Retired), Sturgell is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Virginia School of Law. “He shares the president’s strong commitment to continuing to preserve the safest period of aviation on record,” Perino said. “We will call upon Congress to swiftly confirm him.” Sturgell has been acting administrator since Marion Blakey’s term ended on Sept. 13.
