National gay pilot association
Pride Month: Vaughn Connects its LGBTQ+ Community with the National Gay Pilots Association (NGPA) and its Extensive Resources
Welcome to a exceptional edition of the Vaughn College blog. As the world celebrates Pride Month throughout June, we’d enjoy to connect our Queer community with the National Gay Pilots Association (NGPA) – the largest company of lesbian, gay, multi-attracted and transgender aviation professionals and enthusiasts from around the world. This organization provides resources, career connections, supplementary education, financial and networking support to LGBTQ+ aviation students and professionals. Here, we’ll dive into what the NGPA does, the various resources it proposals and how you can get involved.
What is the NGPA?
Founded in 1990, this charity organization has built its membership by staying true to its mission to build, support and unite the global Homosexual aviation community through learning, social events, advocacy and outreach.
What the NGPA does
The NGPA encourages members of the LGBTQ+ community to start their careers as pilots by providing a place where they can pursue their passion for aviation and connect with like-minded professionals and stud
Greg Sumner: Airline Pilot
Greg Sumner grew up fascinated by airplanes and managed to parlay that cherish of aviation into a career as a pilot, flying some of the most iconic aircraft out there for United Airlines. He also served as the co-chair of the National Homosexual Pilots Association, a worldwide organization consecrated to creating people for LGBTQ+ people across all aviation jobs, and fostering a more inclusive industry. He unified me to distribute some of his pilot stories, to talk about a 9/11 hero who was a member of the National Gay Pilots Association, and explain why he feels diversity and inclusion aren’t just buzzwords, but a matter of life and death.
Content note: At about 28:40, Greg shares a derogatory phrase for a lgbtq+ man that was used to outline him by another pilot.
Transcript after the player.
Link to donate to The Museum of Flight
Link to the National Homosexual Pilots Association website
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SEAN MOBLEY:
When the National Male lover Pilots Association (NGPA), then known as the Gay Pilots Association was founded in 1990 their first few meetings were very prudent events held in Key West, Florida and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Owing to the timbre of the times, closeted airline and military pilots and aviation enthusiasts from around the country stuck to a first specify basis, identifying one another only by wearing shirts with airplanes on them. Twenty-six years later much has changed for NGPA and the LGBT society at large, but NGPA’s mission of proudly representing the issues and concerns of thousands of LGBT aviators through advocacy, education, outreach programs, and career and social networking events nationwide has remained steadfast. In fact, to catch NGPA executive director David Pettet reveal it, twenty-six years in, NGPA is just getting warmed up.
“When I took over as executive director in 2014 our membership was quite low, I think the recession and the economy being what it was in the US contributed to that, but in some ways NGPA was trying to figure out what role it was going to include both in the aviation community and furthermore, the LGBT community,” says