[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 5 (Friday, January 8, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                COMMEMORATING THE RETIREMENT OF STU WITT

  (Mr. KNIGHT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. KNIGHT. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to commemorate the 
retirement of Stu Witt.
  Stu is retiring from the commercial Mojave Air and Space Port in 
Mojave, California. He started his career at CSUN and went on to a 
naval career where he flew F-14s off the John F. Kennedy and F/A-18s. 
He then followed it up by flying B-1s, F-16s, and the YF-23. But I knew 
Stu as a person who took the Air and Space Port in Mojave and put it on 
the map.
  He talked to me early in my legislative career in California and 
said: I have got a bill. This bill has never gone anywhere. It has 
never even gotten a committee hearing, but I want you to run it.
  So we did.
  That bill turned into the indemnification law in California, which 
allowed private spaceflight to happen in California. Without that 
leadership, California would not be on the map for private spaceflight. 
I believe that today, without Stu Witt, California would probably have 
lost out to other States in the Union.
  I would like to say as to Stu Witt's retirement: We know we are going 
to have great things in the future; we know what you have done in the 
past; and we look forward to your exploits for the advancement of 
aerospace in America.

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