Chad Kirk Senior Director, Civil Aviation

Chad serves as Senior Director of Civil Aviation at the Aerospace Industries Association. He focuses on a range of issues in the civil aviation portfolio, including building consensus among a wide range of stakeholders to advance aviation safety, sustainability, and economic viability.   

Previously, Chad served as Head of Policy at Reliable Robotics, where he focused on building a broad policy and engagement strategy with the Executive and Legislative branches, and worked with a wide swath of industry stakeholders to promote Advanced Air Mobility.  He also served as Head of Government and Policy Affairs at Airspace Link, a Detroit-based startup dedicated to building uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) traffic management (UTM) technologies.

Chad also gained substantial knowledge while serving in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).  He held various positions in the organization, notably as a Program Manager of Partnership for Safety (PSP) projects in the UAS Integration Office, where he led teams comprised of subject matter experts, aviation safety analysts, and industry partners to integrate novel UAS operations into the National Airspace System.  He also served as a policy analyst, foreign affairs specialist for North Asia, a counter UAS security analyst, and a member of the Executive Secretariat for the Administrator’s Management Advisory Council (MAC) and the UAS Safety Team (UAST).  He received multiple awards, including the FAA Administrator’s Award for Strategic Achievement and Special Service Award. 

He earned a Master of Arts in Defense and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs from The George Washington University.  Chad is a United States Marine Corps veteran, and volunteers as a youth soccer coach, serves on the board of trustees for Naval Lodge Building, and previously served as an appointee on the Alexandria Gang Prevention Community Task Force.