"The BFA’s single greatest achievement and failing may be one and the same. Achievement in the sense of bringing together balloonists from all around the country into one organized body speaking with one voice. A failure in the sense that our group is so diverse we are seldom able to reach a true consensus on important issues."
Peter Pellegrino
1st BFA President
Pennsylvania
"I think the people who are running the BFA are doing a fine job, I really do. Of course (soon to be 80 years old) I’m no longer an active balloonist, but I get the publications and I read about it and I’m very impressed.
"If you only knew what it was in the early days; we were just a handful of pilots, a paper organization really because there just weren’t enough balloonists around. I would think about it and I would get depressed. I thought we would all get old and die and gradually there would be nobody around. That was until Don Piccard and the hot air balloonists came around. As soon as I saw these things (hot air balloons) operate I thought ‘here is the salvation of the BFA.’
"Hot air balloonists, because of their numbers, saved the organization, they made the organization. From less than a dozen when we started to the thousands of members today, no I didn’t think it would grow like that. But I’m glad it did because the BFA became a viable organization, not just a paper organization."
Roger Barker
Past Board Member
California
"I think the BFA has grown and has matured and I think the things they are involved in now is the logical evolution of the sport. Certainly taking the Nationals on the road has allowed more and more people to become involved in ballooning, and that has been very, very good for ballooning. It’s a positive thing they’ve done and it has positive long term results. It was spawned when I was on the board and it is evolving to this day, still growing and becoming better and better."
Tom Heinsheimer
Past Gas Events Chair
California
"I think it is certainly fair to say the BFA was a focus of developing the sport, of developing the skills and particularly bringing the sport into the mainstream. The sport had to have some sort of organized structure to deal with the FAA, to deal with insurance problems, to deal with the things that were bigger than individual balloonist and so it created a structure that allowed people to function and for groups like the FAA , insurance companies and others to deal with ballooning as a whole. Otherwise we would have continued to be individuals and the sport would not have fared so well."
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