Californian Drohan can’t remember a time when he didn’t love airplanes — much to the horror of his parents and three older siblings who did not. After his father died when he was 12, a family friend introduced him to a small outfit selling biplane rides at Schellville Airport in Sonoma. Hooked instantly, he got an after-school job there and took pay in flying lessons. Then, diploma in hand, he earned his comm/multi/instrument tickets and in 1992 began Sunset Aviation, Inc., giving air tours over San Francisco Bay.

Pete Bunce believes that business and general aviation have “given back for years.” The GAMA president claims that “Every year at our annual review we talk about using our aircraft for humanitarian missions . . . and when you [consider] business aviation, there are many organizations, each with a niche for routine humanitarian efforts, that the larger public isn’t familiar with, but which help a lot of people.”

Space prohibits recognition of all the business aviation operators that donated their aircraft and cockpit crews to the Haitian earthquake relief effort; industry companies supporting it with donations of money, food and supplies; and volunteers who gave generously of their time and sweat. Thumbnail sketches of many others can be found on the NBAA Web site at www.nbaa.org/news/2010/haiti/business-aviation-in-action/missions.