The USPA Board of Directors held its second meeting of the 2019-2021 term in Arlington, Virginia, July 12-14. The Virginia location gave directors, including those on the board for the first time, the opportunity to visit USPA Headquarters, an hour south in Fredericksburg, prior to the meeting.
Meeting highlights include:
The board awarded the following USPA service awards:
- The USPA Lifetime Achievement Award to Ray Ferrell, D-5748.
- The USPA Gold Medal for Meritorious Service to Bryan Burke, D-8866; Tom Jenkins (posthumously), D-7707; and Kirk Knight, D-6709.
- The USPA Regional Achievement Award to James Burriss Jr., D-9540; John Dobleman, D-7790; Logan Donovan, D-31751; John Mitchell, D-6462; and Marc Nadeau, D-14782.
The board has revamped the requirements for the PRO Rating, including adding a new high-performance endorsement for those with wing loadings above 1.5:1. The new requirements will become effective January 1, 2020, or with the next rating renewal after that date. Details of the new requirements will become available within the next month.
To align with manufacturer requirements, the board changed the minimum tandem emergency procedure decision altitude to 3,000 feet and the minimum tandem container opening altitude to 5,000 feet.
The board voted to allow USPA Coaches to teach the Integrated Student Program Category F through H canopy dive flows and verify completion of those requirements on the four-page A-license proficiency card.
The board is adding a section to the Skydiver’s Information Manual that will provide guidance for submitting incident reports that will be available in the online version of the SIM by the end of July.
A full report will appear in the September issue of Parachutist.
The board next meets January 31-February 2 in Phoenix, Arizona.