Dispatch from the Road: Appreciating San Jose, California
Over the past few years I have been fortunate to attend many private aviation trade shows.
People often ask me the same question: “Where is it?”
My response is the usual name of the common convention city. Though I typically add a line about how it can really be anywhere in the world, because in the end we see the hotel, the convention center, and the restaurant.
I am not complaining, I love going, but this is the case more often than not.
Though once in a while the host city does matter as it can represent so much in our global world that has essentially re-shaped our every day lives.
Last week, the quaint city of San Jose – the center of technology innovation – welcomed professionals who coordinate arguably the most innovative product ever created – the aircraft.
Admittedly, I was very surprised when I heard San Jose was the featured location of this year’s NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference.
Though this all faded fast upon arriving.
San Jose is a charming city mixed with an old town that invokes the original Spanish settlers along with its “new world” high rises adorned by corporate logos that remind you that this is the Silicon Valley.
The city has a diverse mix of Mexican, Japanese, American restaurants plus a selection of local and name brand retail stores. Combine the high tech, the diverse food selections, the shopping, and you have the perfect setting for an International group of aviation schedulers and dispatchers.
Euro Jet exhibited and thanks to the efforts of my colleagues Attila Papai, Zaneta Balochova, and Anna Zharinova many exisiting customers, vendors, and prospective clients all stopped by our booth to say hello, thank you, and find out a little more about us.
On Wednesday night we co-hosted an event with ITPS, Limo Link, and ASM Corp at Billy Berk’s bar, which was an amazing success.
On Thursday night we celebrated the end of the show at the Tech Museum of Innovation, located down the road from the Convention Center. While we had spent the week talking to fellow members of the private aviation community, now we could explore all the scientific principals that make up the technology that allows for aviation to even be possible.
And as the convention came to an end my skepticism of San Jose had all but vanished. Here we were in a city developed by some of the original explorers to America; people who embodied the same spirit of adventure held by those in aviation.
The same city that allowed for the development of avionics, scheduling software, e-mail, the world wide web and of course Apple, Facebook, Google, and everything in between.
Without the technology of San Jose, the aviation world as we know it and of course our global interconnected world would be unrecognizable.
So as we took photos on our iphones with one another, liked each others posts, and google mapped where to go, we kept appreciating this City of Innovation more and more for all it has done.
Thank you San Jose. You really did change the world.
#nbaa2017?
