Each year, the University Aviation Association grants the W.W. Estridge Award to a person who has distinguished themselves as a strong supporter of collegiate aviation education, and this year, ASA’s own Greg Robbins was honored. Nominations for the award must come from UAA members, and the honoree must have made significant contributions while actively involved in the UAA.
The award is named for Captain Walter W. Estridge, Jr., whose wide-ranging career includes serving as a US Air Force pilot in WWII and 31 years at American Airlines where he served as the Director of Flight Training. He accumulated around 25,000 hours in nearly 100 types of general aviation, military, and commercial airliners—so many that his pilot certificate required the FAA to add second page to hold his qualifications and ratings.
About Robbins
Now the ASA president and sales manager, Robbins has always been fascinated with flight and airplanes. A neighbor in high school brought him in contact with a corporate pilot who attended a college with an aviation program, which inspired Robbins to start looking for a place to begin his aviation journey. He landed at Western Michigan University, where he pursued a Bachelor of Science in engineering with a professional pilot emphasis, and where a summer flying skydivers opened his eyes to the business and responsibility of being a pilot.
Robbins has stayed in contact with WMU since then, and all his pilot certificates and ratings (except seaplane) were obtained there. It was in his flight training that he had his first experience with ASA products, which he recalls being straight forward and easy to use, in addition to affordably priced.
In his 35 years as a pilot, Robbins has also worked in aviation education, aviation management, and aviation sales. His diverse industry resume spans both teaching at an aviation college in Japan and representing ASA at AirVenture in Oshkosh (“a one-of-a-kind experience”) as well as at AERO in Germany (“a very unique show”). His favorite job is his current one. He’s been on the ASA staff for 16 years, and if you ask him why, he will say that watching the spark of an author’s idea grow into a book that people use in their aviation education continues to feed his fascination with flight.
