FRMS Forum

The Non Executive Chair of the Forum is Dr Curtis Graeber who has recently retired as a Senior Technical Fellow at Boeing Commercial Airplanes where he served as the Chief Engineer for Human Factors and Director of Regional Safety Programs.

He holds a PhD in Neuropsychology from the University of Virginia and served in several management positions in research, airplane design, and safety at Boeing.

Dr. Graeber led Boeing's efforts to improve Regional Safety including industry implementation of the Global Aviation Safety Roadmap which he co-authored. Before joining Boeing he led the flight crew fatigue research program at NASA's Ames Research Center and served as Chief of Flight Human Factors.

His seminal research on crew fatigue has formed the basis for much of the recent progress in addressing fatigue risk management in aviation. He has authored over 100 scientific and technical articles, and is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Aerospace Medical Association. He also served as the Human Factors Specialist for the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.

Curt co-chaired the Flight Safety Foundation's Ultra Long-Range Crew Alertness Initiative which brought together operators, labor representatives, regulators, manufacturers and scientists from 14 nations to produce consensus guidance for flight operations exceeding 16 hours.

He also chaired the ICAO Operations Panel's Flight Time Limitations and Fatigue Risk Management Subgroups which updated the Annex 6 FTL SARP and developed FRM guidance material.

His safety related awards include the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators' "Cumberbatch Trophy", the Aerospace Medical Association's Boothby-Edwards Award, the International Federation of Airworthiness "Whittle Safety Award", an Aviation Week & Space Technology "Laurel" (1999), and the FSF-Airbus Human Factors Award for 2006.

He is an Honorary Research Fellow at Massey University's Sleep Wake Research Centre in New Zealand and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Sleep Foundation.

In 2008 he was awarded the Maurice Roy Medal for fostering international cooperation in human factors research on crew fatigue by the 26th Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences.