The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) announced on January 7 that it has named Richard King, a veteran naval officer and pilot and an expert on international aerospace and maritime issues, as senior vice president of Regulatory and International Affairs.
King served for over 25 years in the British Royal Navy, retiring with the rank of Commander. During his military career, he qualified as a pilot, warfare officer and weapons expert, including the amphibious and mine warfare domains. He has commanded a warship, naval air squadron, amphibious air group and the prestigious United Kingdom naval officer training academy at Dartmouth.
His operational experience is global, and included assignments to Northern Ireland, the Persian Gulf, Yugoslavia, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Falkland Islands and Australasia. King also served on senior operational and policy staff appointments for the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence in London and at the British Embassy, in Washington DC, working closely with the United States Department of Defense. This role included developing the new U.K. Aircraft Carrier and Joint Strike fighter capabilities.
Since retiring from the military in 2011, King has advised companies in the creation of business strategy to compete for government contracts and to engage federal and international regulators. These agencies included the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the United Kingdom Civilian Aviation Authority (UK CAA) and Transport Canada.
Most recently, King was director of Aviation Information Software and responsible for designing, developing and bringing to market Skyregs.com, a unique cloud-based application. This capability delivers a single source access to all 1.5 million FAA safety rules, regulations and related documents in seconds. In this role, he was also responsible for regulatory domain awareness across the aerospace sector. This included the development of traffic management systems for both the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) markets as a member of ASTM F38 standards development group for UAS remote tracking and identification.
“Rich has extensive operational and technical depth in advising and influencing the development of policy, rulemaking, and standards to support the integration of unmanned systems for defense and commercial applications,” said Brian Wynne, president and CEO of AUVSI. “We’re looking forward to Rich contributing to AUVSI’s mission of collaborating with regulatory and other government officials to expand operations for the air, ground, and maritime domains of the unmanned systems industry.”
King has flown more than 3,500 flight hours operating fixed and rotary wing aircraft and has obtained several pilots’ licenses, including EASA and FAA Air Transport Pilot (ATP) and remote pilot licenses. He earned his master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Cambridge and bachelor’s degree in Geography from Kingston University in the U.K.
