Electra Aero Announces “Donn Yates to be VP of Company’s Government Programs”

Elec­tra Aero announced last week that avi­a­tion indus­try vet­er­an, Col. Donn Yates (USAF Ret.), has joined the com­pa­ny as Vice Pres­i­dent of Gov­ern­ment Pro­grams.

In this role, Yates is “to dri­ve Electra’s efforts to devel­op and deliv­er cut­ting-edge adapt­able capa­bil­i­ties for U.S. Gov­ern­ment cus­tomers,” explains the release. And will “spear­head Electra’s busi­ness devel­op­ment efforts for addi­tion­al devel­op­ment and pro­cure­ment con­tracts focused on address­ing the logis­tics mis­sion for the last tac­ti­cal leg to enhance the secu­ri­ty and com­pet­i­tive­ness of America’s warfight­ers.”

Electra’s Ultra Short air­craft, the EL9, offers new logis­tics capa­bil­i­ties for warfight­ers includ­ing an abil­i­ty to take off and land qui­et­ly in heli­copter-sized spaces in remote and aus­tere areas, pro­vid­ing mobile pow­er capa­bil­i­ties while retain­ing the safe­ty, cost and range ben­e­fits of a fixed-wing air­craft. 

The EL9 also enables air oper­a­tors to con­nect places that lack avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture; fly into air­ports with strict noise restric­tions; cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties and busi­ness mod­els for car­go ser­vices; and save pas­sen­gers sig­nif­i­cant time and has­sle.

B. Marc Allen, CEO of Elec­tra, com­ment­ed, “Whether in the cock­pit of an F‑15 or in the board­room, Donn is a proven leader that has achieved mean­ing­ful results at the high­est lev­els of com­mer­cial and mil­i­tary avi­a­tion.” 

He con­tin­ued, “His expe­ri­ence and pas­sion to deliv­er are a per­fect fit for Elec­tra as we devel­op the EL9’s next-gen­er­a­tion capa­bil­i­ties to solve our warfight­ers’ most press­ing logis­tics needs for the last tac­ti­cal leg.”

Electra’s Goldfinch tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tor, the EL2

Yates added, “This run­way inde­pen­dent air­craft has the pow­er to pro­vide trans­for­ma­tion­al capa­bil­i­ties to ensure that peo­ple and car­go can reach the most remote, con­test­ed cor­ners of the world. I look for­ward to work­ing with the Elec­tra team and our gov­ern­ment cus­tomers to realise the EL9’s poten­tial to give our warfight­ers the deci­sive edge.” 

Back­ground 

Yates has had a dis­tin­guished 30-year career across the aero­space indus­try, USAF and U.S Army. Most recent­ly, he served as VP of Air Dom­i­nance Busi­ness Devel­op­ment and Strat­e­gy for Boeing’s Defense, Space and Secu­ri­ty Divi­sion. Before that, Yates was COO of Fly Exclu­sive, where he devel­oped and imple­ment­ed strate­gies to increase rev­enue, effi­cien­cy, and prof­itabil­i­ty for one of the nation’s larg­er pri­vate jet char­ter oper­a­tors.

Before enter­ing the pri­vate sec­tor, Yates served in the mil­i­tary for 25 years as an Air Force fight­er pilot and an Army infantry­man, retir­ing with the rank of Colonel. 

He is a grad­u­ate and for­mer instruc­tor of the USAF Fight­er Weapons School and held lead­er­ship roles in var­i­ous high-pro­file com­mands includ­ing lead­ing the Joint Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Avi­a­tion Detach­ment and the largest F‑15E fight­er wing in the Air Force, which received mul­ti­ple awards for inno­v­a­tive approach­es to achiev­ing their mis­sion.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.electra.aero

(Top image: Col. Donn Yates (USAF Ret.))

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