Staff Profiles

Executive Council

AEF’s work is overseen by an Executive Council that meets every two months. Members come from a range of backgrounds – including business, finance, education and the civil service – and play an active part in our day-to-day activities.

Staff

Tim Johnson

Director

Tim has worked with the Federation for over twenty years, having joined as Planning Officer in 1989 with a degree majoring in transport planning. He became Director in 1997 following the retirement of the AEF’s founder Moyra Logan. Early work focused almost exclusively on aircraft noise and planning law, but undeterred, he stayed to witness the birth of the debate on aviation’s contribution to climate change, an issue that the AEF plays a major role in resolving at a global and national level.

Tim provides the AEF’s representation at the International Civil Aviation Organisation as well as on the Department for Transport’s External Advisory Group, and other stakeholder advisory roles associated with NATS, the Sustainable Aviation Initiative, the European Commission, and the academic partnership, OMEGA. He spent a year working for DEFRA on aviation issues, a role that left him with some sympathy for the civil servants we try to influence today! He tries to leave all this at the office at the end of each day to spend time with his young family – two boys aged one and four.

Cait Hewitt

Deputy Director

Cait (short for Catrina) joined AEF as Policy and Communications Officer in October 2007 and became Deputy Director in 2009. Having previously worked in education and social care, she is interested in the ways in which social and environmental goals and policies should overlap, for example through a shift in political focus from economic growth to quality of life. She has a First Class degree in sociology and an M.A. with Distinction in environmental philosophy; her dissertation focussed on the social justice implications of climate change.

At AEF she has worked on the inclusion of aviation in the EU emissions trading scheme, and is currently involved with public safety around airports, aviation’s compatibility with the UK climate change strategy, and airport noise action plans.

Cait also helps to manage the content of the AEF website and to communicate AEF policy through journal articles, speaking engagements and the members’ newsletter Flying Green, which she edits. In June 2009 she enjoyed an aviation-free honeymoon.

Tim Thomas

General Aviation Caseworker, Treasurer

Tim has been involved with the AEF for around 30 years, initially through his local parish council at Headcorn in Kent, which he was representing at a local airfield planning appeal. He was elected to the AEF council in the1990s (when also tackling a further planning appeal at Headcorn) and became AEF treasurer a few years later. Since retiring from BT in 2001, his role at AEF has expanded and he now undertakes part-time general aviation casework and handles membership issues. He also represents AEF at the National Air Traffic Management Committee, where, as the sole environmentalist, he manages to cause some controversy (ask him for details!)

Tim, who has experience as a retained firefighter and school governor, continues to be closely involved with his local community. He is chairman of the parish council and of the local history society, is a part-time librarian, and is currently helping to set up a village archive centre in Headcorn’s new £1.6m village hall complex, and still finds time to deliver IT training to the older generation. At AEF, he is regularly to be found under a desk, fixing our computers. He enjoys the Kent countryside and believes in the value of rural peace and quiet.

Nic Ferriday

Air Transport Caseworker

Nic has been an environmentalist ever since leaving university where he obtained a degree in physics. After a career with British Telecom and its previous incarnations he retired early so he could, to use his own words, “do something worthwhile instead of just making money for myself”. Living in West London, he was drawn to the biggest environmental issue in the area and the biggest polluter – Heathrow. He represented Friends of the Earth at the lengthy Heathrow Terminal 5 public inquiry, dealing with aviation policy, air pollution, surface transport, economics, ecology and air pollution. The knowledge and interest gained there led to him becoming a part-time case worker for AEF, dealing with civil aviation.

Nic also campaigns on transport issues for his local Friends of the Earth group, including fighting for better public transport and fewer cars, addressing air pollution, saving open spaces and trying to change planning policies. A particular concern of his, arising from many years of dealing with councils and central government, is the systematic use of spin, bias and misinformation from politicians and from the officials who support them.

Riki Therivel

Planning Advisor

Riki was invited to join AEF as a part-time planning consultant in 2007, in response to a need among members for specialist planning knowledge. She has particular expertise in ‘appropriate assessment’ and strategic environmental assessment. Since joining AEF, Riki has authored our online handbook Airports and Planning, written AEF’s response to the Heathrow consultation, advised us on the Planning Bill and taken on a range of member casework.

Riki is a visiting Professor at Oxford-Brookes University and a partner at environmental consultants Levett-Therivel, where she has recently worked on developing guidance on appropriate assessment of plans and conducting Sustainability appraisal and appropriate assessment of the South East Plan and RSS for the North West. She is based in Oxford.

Roger Wood

Office Administrator

Roger came to the AEF through his campaigning for a little more peace around Luton Airport, an interest not unconnected to his living just a mile from the end of the runway. However, of more relevance to his current role is his managerial career spent mostly in the gas and pharmaceutical industries, education and the civil service. He brings with him considerable experience in IT (much of gained at a time when computers were used only by experts), and is qualified as a chartered electrical engineer.

In addition to his wide-ranging experience in office management, AEF also benefits from Roger’s detailed understanding of aircraft noise and his increasing expertise in risk to the public around airports. He has served two terms as a District Councillor when he was heavily involved in planning decisions, gaining an understanding of the planning process that he has subsequently been able to use in his campaigning. He would like to understand climate change but for the time being says he’ll leave that to his colleagues!