[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 186 (Friday, December 11, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H14809]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING ED STIMPSON

  (Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. DICKS. Madam Speaker, it is with great sadness that I come before 
the House to note the death of a leader in the civil aviation industry 
and a man familiar to many here in Congress. Mr. Ed Stimpson, who 
served as president of General Aviation Manufacturers Association for 
19 years, died at his home on November 25 in Boise, Idaho. Many of us 
in this Chamber recall that he was the driving force behind the General 
Aviation Revitalization Act which altered the liability of small 
aircraft manufacturers and led to a reinvigoration of the small 
aircraft industry in the United States.
  After he retired from direct leadership of the association, he took 
on a new project, the ``Be a Pilot'' campaign that was designed to 
increase the population of student pilots in the United States. It was 
a great success, not only in enlarging the number of citizens capable 
of flying live aircraft, but also in providing a technological boost to 
the manufacturing industry that resulted in the design and construction 
of new and safer aircraft.
  Later, he was named by President Bill Clinton to the International 
Civil Aviation Organization, a Montreal-based group that promotes safe 
aviation around the world. He served in that post with the rank of 
ambassador through 2004, and he was one of three ambassadors to be 
reappointed by President George W. Bush. His reappointment was 
indicative of the bipartisan approach he brought to all of his 
endeavors.
  Ed Stimpson was also a recipient of the Wright Brothers Memorial 
Trophy for Lifetime Achievement. He was a great leader, a great friend 
of many of us, and he will be missed.
  I would like to insert a personal reflection that was published in 
Seattle last week by a long-time friend of Ed's, Mr. Ted Van Dyk.

                      Our Good Friend, Ed Stimpson

                            (By Ted Van Dyk)

       Ed Stimpson, a longtime leader in the civil-aviation 
     industry, died this past Wednesday in Boise. His obituary, 
     distributed via Associated Press from Boise and picked up by 
     other media, was maddeningly unsatisfying. It listed his 
     achievements as a U.S. ambassador, head of national civil-
     aviation bodies, and leader of a general-aviation trade 
     association. But it gave no sense of his wonderful qualities 
     as a human being and of his meaningful civic and political 
     involvements.
       Born in Bellingham exactly one month before I was, Ed 
     Stimpson was the son of a beloved physician and the oldest of 
     seven children. The hospital where both of us were born is 
     now named after his father. We grew up in hard times and 
     shared a firm commitment to the Democratic Party and its 
     agenda of the time. The president of our high school 
     Democratic Club was Sterling Munro, who later would serve as 
     Sen. Henry (Scoop) Jackson's principal assistant.
       In 1962, when I was being released from a recall to 
     military service, a chance street-corner meeting with Ed led 
     to my being hired by the then-European Communities (the 
     present European Union). He was at that time representing the 
     Seattle World's Fair in Washington, D.C. At the fair he met 
     Dorothy Sortor, a Century 21 public-affairs officer, and 
     later married her. They were brought together, I always 
     thought, by Eddie Carlson, the driving force behind the fair 
     and a lifetime friend and sponsor of many of us who were 
     coming up at the time.
       Later Ed went on to executive positions in government, in 
     aviation, and in business. While an officer of Morrison-
     Knudsen, he and his wife Dottie bought a home in Boise which 
     was their home base thereafter. Ed and Dottie also helped 
     transform Boise from a conservative political bastion into 
     the state's Democratic stronghold. In 1972, when Jackson had 
     no chance of nomination, they campaigned hard for his 
     presidential candidacy. Later, when House Speaker Tom Foley's 
     reelection was threatened, they dropped everything and moved 
     to Spokane to help in what turned out to be a losing effort.
       Ed's and Dottie's strongest and longest friends have 
     included Rep. Norm Dicks and his family, former Jackson chief 
     of staff Denny Miller, and former Warren Magnuson chief of 
     staff Jerry Grinstein. He and Dottie kept a photo album of 
     their outings with the Dicks family. (Other local friends 
     include two members of the Crosscut family, Peter Jackson, 
     son of Scoop, and Gene Carlson, son of Eddie Carlson). Beyond 
     politics, aviation, and the business world, Ed Stimpson had 
     an army of friends and admirers who had met him at various 
     intersections along the way. When he was diagnosed with lung 
     cancer several months ago (Ed had never smoked), e-mails 
     began flowing in great number among friends from all his 
     lives.
       I called Ed when I got the news. He had found himself short 
     of breath while walking through the Denver airport and had 
     gone to his doctor for what he thought would be a routine 
     checkup. Later, the lung cancer spread to his brain.
       As my own good luck would have it, I spent last Saturday 
     with Ed and Dottie at St. Luke's hospital in Boise. He was 
     heavily medicated. He argued unsuccessfully with his nurses 
     that he be allowed to dress and ``have lunch and conversation 
     at a more suitable place'' than at his hospital bed. 
     Characteristically, he talked not about himself or his 
     illness but about current public issues, his involvement in 
     an aviation-industry study, and his pride in his part in 
     strengthening the Idaho Democratic Party. Denny Miller 
     visited a day later. Then Ed was sent home to hospice care. 
     He passed almost immediately--spared, as it turned out, from 
     a long ordeal for him and for Dottie which might have 
     followed.
       E-mails have flowed from the Stimpson network since his 
     passing. That is because he was held in such love and respect 
     by all whose lives he had touched. Over his lifetime he was 
     never known to speak cruelly or harshly about another person. 
     He preferred instead to make his own positive contributions 
     wherever he could. His integrity shone. He was the archtype 
     ``other-oriented'' person, always seeking to help other 
     people and causes, never to advance himself. He was a good 
     and rare human being.

                          ____________________