AVIATION WEEK Names Robert Gates Person of the Year

NEW YORK, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Robert M. Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense, has been named the 2008 Person of the Year in a cover story released this week in Aviation Week & Space Technology. Robert Gates was sworn in as the 22nd Secretary of Defense in December 2006 and was recently asked to stay on by President-elect Barack Obama, marking the first time a newly elected chief executive would retain the existing Pentagon chief for his Cabinet.

Robert Gates has spent his time in office working to improve the U.S. position in Iraq and Afghanistan and repair damaged relations with Congress, the State Dept. and the global aerospace industry. With a long career of public service, he was also deputy chief of the CIA and was most recently president of Texas A&M University.

"Robert Gates is a pragmatic, principled career analyst who is adaptable and knows how to build consensus and work within the government bureaucracy to get things done, but who also isn't afraid to make decisions that will turn the status quo on its head," said Aviation Week & Space Technology Editor-in-Chief Anthony L. Velocci, Jr. "Both the short- and long-term impact of bold, controversial decisions he made in the first 10 months of the year were too significant, too far-reaching to come to any other conclusion."

The Person of the Year distinction, the fourth in AVIATION WEEK's 92-year history, recognizes the impact individuals have on the broader aviation, aerospace and defense community. AVIATION WEEK staff editors selected Gates from an international field of candidates. Prior recipients include the father of China's space program, Tsien Hsue-shen, in 2007; Alan R. Mulally, currently of Ford Motor Co. and previously of Boeing Co., in 2006; and Finmeccanica's Pier Francesco Guarguaglini in 2005.

Complete coverage of the Person of the Year, including photos and runners-up, is available at http://www.aviationweek.com.

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AVIATION WEEK, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is the largest multimedia information and services provider to the global aviation, aerospace and defense industries, and includes the publications Aviation Week & Space Technology, Defense Technology International, Business & Commercial Aviation, Overhaul & Maintenance, ShowNews, Aviation Daily, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report and the World Aerospace Database. The group's website, www.aviationweek.com, offers the industry's most reliable news, information, search and online community tools. Premium content services include the Aviation Week Intelligence Network, MRO Prospector, and the Top-Performing Companies Benchmarking Tool. The group also produces prominent conferences, exhibitions and management forums around the world.

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