The 2017 European Business Aviation Awards were presented to Marian-Jean Marinescu, member of the European Parliamentv (MEP), and Carlo des Dorides, executive director at the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA), at this year’s European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (Ebace 2017). 

The prestigious awards were given by the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) and National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) on the first day of the event at the Palexpo center and Geneva international Airport in Geneva, Switzerland.

“We are honored to recognise MEP Marinescu for the outstanding role he has played in promoting the interests of business aviation in the European Parliament,” said EBAA CEO Brandon Mitchener. “Marinescu helped to make the EBAA’s ‘Meet your MEP’ campaign a reality by hosting an insightful discussion with some of our Romanian members in his hometown of Craiova. This meeting was most beneficial in continuing our longstanding and fruitful cooperation with the European Parliament.

Marinescu became a member of the European Parliament in 2007 with the accession of Romania to the European Union. Today, he is vice chairman of the EPP and member of the Transport Committee where he acts as rapporteur on crucial aviation files such as Single European Sky (SES) 2+ and the EASA Basic Regulation Review.

An aviation specialist, Marinescu studied aerospace engineering before working as an engineer for Avioane SA and Aviation Institute branch in Craiova.

He entered politics in 1992 as a member of the Craiova City Council and went on to hold various political mandates before winning a seat in the 2004 legislative elections. He is a Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Romania.

“As executive director of the GSA, Mr. des Dorides sets the vision of the agency, and ensures Europe’s satellite navigation systems are effectively operated, well maintained and secure,” continued Mitchener. “GSA and EBAA signed an agreement to promote EGNOS deployment in the aviation sector across Europe, and specifically LPV approaches, and together we identified a series of European airports where LPV is of key interest to business aviation.

“GSA, under the leadership of des Dorides, has always been a strong supporter of EBAA in its talks with the European Commission, and contributed key input to EBAA’s position paper on EGNOS,” he added.

des Dorides has nearly three decades of experience managing space service focused teams. Most recently, he had key management responsibilities at the European Commission, and was responsible for the definition of the Galileo/EGNOS exploitation phase and the EGNOS operational phase.

Before joining the commission, des Dorides led the Concession Department at the European GNSS Supervisory Authority, and served as chief negotiator of the Galileo Public-Private-Partnership/Concession contract at the Galileo Joint Undertaking. His career has focused on program management and operations of advanced satellite systems. As director of programmes and engineering at ENAV, the Italian air navigation service provider, he was responsible for updating the technology of Italian airports and Area Control Centres.

Prior to that he held several management positions in the aerospace private sector.