David Ford joined Era after having recently retired from a distinguished 31 year career at the FAA.  Mr. Ford has successfully managed programs in the terminal environment, airport surface and oceanic airspace, serving as the catalyst for several ground-breaking improvements.  Mr. Ford is responsible for managing Era’s strategic surveillance programs where the company’s ADS-B and multilateration technologies are positioned to improve air traffic safety, capacity and efficiency for the next-generation of air traffic management.

Mr. Ford led the team on the deployment of the Advanced Technologies and Oceanic Procedures (ATOP) program that controls traffic over 24 million square miles of oceanic airspace.  ATOP is widely regarded as a monumental success in the industry, as it dramatically increases the capacity through reduction of aircraft separation standards from 100 to 30 miles, which significantly reduces airline costs. 

Mr. Ford is also known as the “father of DOTS,” the Dynamic Ocean Track System, which generates daily flight tracks to improve the efficiency of ocean crossing for the user community.  And, while leading the FAA’s Safeflight 21 team, he was responsible for exploring runway incursion tools, which include surface applications of ADS-B and multilateration.