On the recordJanuary 8, 2016
Today I would like to commemorate the retirement of Stu Witt. Stu is retiring from the commercial Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California. He started his career at CSUN and went on to a naval career where he flew F-14s off the John F. Kennedy and F/A-18s. He then followed it up by flying B-1s, F-16s, and the YF-23. But I knew Stu as a person who took the Air and Space Port in Mojave and put it on the map. He talked to me early in my legislative career in California and said: I have got a bill. This bill has never gone anywhere. It has never even gotten a committee hearing, but I want you to run it. So we did. That bill turned into the indemnification law in California, which allowed private spaceflight to happen in California. Without that leadership, California would not be on the map for private spaceflight. I believe that today, without Stu Witt, California would probably have lost out to other States in the Union. I would like to say as to Stu Witt's retirement: We know we are going to have great things in the future; we know what you have done in the past; and we look forward to your exploits for the advancement of aerospace in America. ____________________
