Speaker: Rick Beach


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President, Community Airfields Association of San Diego

Community Airfields Assocation of San Diego became a party to the Suroad litigation at the request of the City. We brought aviation expertise and published the most extensive web-based timeline of what went on between the FAA, Caltrans, Sunroad Enterprises, Department of Building Services, and the Mayor's staff.

Rick Beach has been an advocate for aviation users in San Diego since 2003 when he became the AOPA Airport Support Network volunteer for Montgomery Field. As a private pilot in his Cirrus Design SR22, Rick travels extensively across the US and Canada and speaks regularly about flight safety, accident histories, and aeronautical decision-making. Protecting our airports and access to the national air transportation system lead to the creation of the Community Airfields Association of San Diego in 2005, which he helped found and serves as its president. CAASD initially focused on issues related to on-airport development, but the Sunroad building soon became a symbol for development encroachment near airports. Rick has been a stalwart member of the ALUC Technical Advisory Group for land use planning of all 16 airports in San Diego County for the past 20 months attending over 85 meetings and establishing consensus with developers, land use attorneys, city planners, and community representatives. For his efforts, Rick Beach was recognized by the California Pilots Association as the 2006 Airport Advocate of the Year and by the AOPA with the 2007 Lawrence P. Sharples award. Rick is a retired technology executive with a career spanning research and business services in computer graphics and electronic documents.