Marion Blakey

Marion Clifton Blakey (born March 26, 1948) is an American businesswoman and former government official who served as president and CEO of Rolls-Royce North America. Prior to joining Rolls-Royce, she served as the eighth full-time chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association, an American defense industry trade association from 2007 to 2015. Before this, she served a five-year term as the 15th Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. Blakey was the second woman to hold the position, serving as a successor to Jane Garvey, the first woman to hold the Administrator title. She was the second Administrator who was not a licensed pilot. She was awarded the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy in 2013.

Early life and education Blakey was born in Gadsden, Alabama.

Blakey has held six previous Presidential appointments, four of which required Senate confirmation. From 1992 to 1993, Blakey served as administrator of the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). As the nation's leading highway safety official, she was charged with reducing deaths, injuries, and economic losses resulting from motor vehicle crashes. Prior to her service at NHTSA, she held key positions at the United States Department of Commerce, the United States Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the White House, and the United States Department of Transportation. Just prior to departure as administrator, she attributed the increased delays on poor scheduling by the airlines at busy airports. Blakey also attributed delays to bad weather, increased regional jet traffic, fewer air traffic controllers in the system and failures or delays attributed to the antiquated air traffic system which she worked to replace with NextGen. Senator Charles Schumer of the opposition Democratic Party publicly blamed the FAA for the delays, and called for Blakey's resignation. Shortly after her tenure ended, on September 25, 2007, the Office of the Inspector General issued a report stating, "Based on the first 7 months of the year, it is clear that 2007 may be the busiest travel period since the peak of 2000 and may surpass the 2000 record levels for flight delays, cancellations, and diversions."

The FAA declared an impasse over contract negotiations and imposed work rules including partial pay caps for veteran controllers and an alternative, lower pay scale for new hires on the air traffic controller workforce, represented by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). The five-year labor contract in dispute was imposed on Labor Day in 2006 after Congress failed to intervene. The FAA thus imposed a unilateral reduction in pay scale of approximately 30 percent on active air traffic controllers only—all other FAA employees, including air traffic staff (those air traffic employees not directly involved in the control of air traffic) and supervisors/management retained their pay scales. The following year the Federal Labor Relations Authority ruled against NATCA's 2006 grievance. In 2006, Blakey said the agency's final proposal would result in current controllers earning an average of $187,000 a year in pay and benefits after five-years, up from the current $166,000 average. NATCA disputed those figures, saying they included overtime needed because of staffing shortages.

In May 2006, she did not anticipate increased retirements saying, "I was very surprised that the union said that there would be retirements triggered under the current proposal." The FAA noted that the agency hired over 1,400 new air traffic controller trainees and employed 14,874 nationwide exceeding 2007's target. Trainees normally take three to five years to complete their training.

In August 2007, a month before departing the FAA, Blakey described the current National Airspace System saying, "We are at a breaking point,"

She became president and Chief Executive Officer of the industry trade association, Aerospace Industries Association, on Nov. 12, 2007. Her move to the new role was criticized at the time by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Project On Government Oversight, and by Rep. Henry Waxman of the opposition Democratic Party, on the grounds that the AIA represents firms that the FAA oversaw and awarded contracts to during her five-year tenure. Blakey said at the time that she had not taken a direct role in any regulatory action that affected the AIA, which represents aircraft manufacturers and defense contractors, and that she was "taken aback and a little appalled, frankly" at the issues being raised.

Personal life She is married to William Ryan Dooley.