The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) has unveiled a redesign of its upper management structure, adding for the first time a chief operating officer (COO) to oversee the day-to-day running of the association, as well as creating a new position to lead the AOPA Foundation, and filling the top spot in the association’s government affairs division.
Robert Moran, most recently president and CEO of the Ancora Group, LLC, has been named AOPA’s COO. Karen Gebhart, currently AOPA’s executive vice president of communications, will fill the newly created position of president of the AOPA Foundation, while Melissa Rudinger, vice president and assistant to the president, has been named senior vice president of government affairs, formalizing a role she has filled since earlier this year.
Moran recently owned and operated a management consulting firm that has worked with AOPA for more than three years. The Ancora Group focuses on leading organizations in transitions, developing leaders and managing talent, providing consultation and coaching to leaders and executives, and strategic planning and positioning. Prior to the Ancora Group, Moran headed the California Association of Health Facilities, served as executive vice president of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, and was the executive director of the American Society for Psychoprophylaxis in Obstetrics and of the International Halfway House Association.
Gebhart has worked with or for AOPA for 19 years, most recently as executive vice president of communications. A pilot, she joined AOPA in 1994 as vice president of membership marketing, earning a promotion to senior vice president in 1996. In 1999 she added AOPA’s member products, technical assistance hotline, and Internet department to her areas of responsibility before being named executive vice president of non-dues revenue.
Rudinger has been at AOPA for nearly two decades. Most of that time was spent in the government affairs division. During that time, she has worked on air traffic issues, aviation security issues, aircraft certification, and other regulatory issues affecting general aviation.
As senior vice president of government affairs, she will oversee all aspects of AOPA’s interaction with both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, as well as state and local governments. Rudinger is a commercial pilot with a lighter-than-air rating. She also has experience in flight school management.
For more information: AOPA.org
