​​​Dan Boedigheimer, Ph.D.

Chief Safety Officer
​Advanced Aircrew Academy​

After finding a passion for teaching as a flight instructor, Dan Boedigheimer built a solid instrument scan and gray hair flying a Beech 1900 without an autopilot for regional airline Great Lakes throughout the Midwest. These flying missions would routinely include eight (8) instrument approaches a day (uphill both ways in icing conditions to minimums). Dan’s business aviation flying experience spans four (4) years in a small Part 91 flight department and 13 years in a large Part 135 operation starting as a SIC, and he is working his way up to managing the company’s training and standards program.

With a philosophy of being a lifetime learner and a stubbornness to re-write a 300+ page dissertation for a third time to free the reader from having to endure the “non-academic” word “it,” Dan holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Science. He also gained membership to the Delta Mu Delta Academic Honor Society for finding 193 academic ways to rephrase “it.”

Dan’s inspiration for his Ph.D. dissertation came in the first hour of being a first-time attendee at Safety Standdown in 2006. The speaker and topic? It was Tony Kern, who captured the audience’s attention with his proven road map on how to join the “Global War on Error.” Four years later, Dan’s FAA sponsored dissertation, “Exploring Pilot Reliability Certification and Changing Attitudes on the Reduction of Errors,” was published in the Journal of the Transportation Research Record. Dan later joined Convergent Performance as a lead human factors instructor. He has been a regular presenter at Safety Standdown since 2011 in Asia, Latin America and the U.S.

Dan has served on the NBAA Safety Committee since 2014 - first as a member of the Training Advisory Committee and today as the Chairman. He also serves on the International Business Aviation Council’s IS-BAO Standards Board as the training subject matter expert and is a reviewer for the Embry Riddle Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education and Research. Dan is excited to work at the Advanced Aircrew Academy as the Chief Safety Officer.