Cessna Names Steve Charles, Tom Grace to Top Customer Service Posts

Wichita, Kan.– Cessna Aircraft Company, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, today announced the appointments of Steve Charles as director, Citation Product Support, and Tom Grace as director, Propeller Product Support. Both positions are based at Cessna’s headquarters in Wichita and both positions report directly to Mark Paolucci, senior vice president, Customer Service.

Charles, a 31-year veteran with Cessna, will manage service options for more than 5,000 Cessna business jets in service around the world. Grace, with Cessna since 1999, replaces Charles as head of the global service network for the company’s legacy and current production single-engine piston and turboprop aircraft.

"Our product support organization is widely regarded as one of the best in the world, and Steve and Tom are charged with making it better" Paolucci said. "Both have demonstrated unique capabilities that make them well-suited to help achieve my goal of evolving Cessna customer service from a great customer-focused group to the best in the industry"

Charles, a Wichita native, has held a number of marketing and support titles through the years, most recently as head of single-engine support. A graduate of Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa, Charles is a certified Textron Six Sigma Green Belt, holds an Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) license, and is an instrument-rated pilot with more than 1,200 flight hours.

A native of St. Paul, Minn., Grace takes over as head of service for more than 120,000 aircraft through a network of some 350 service facilities worldwide. As head of Cessna’s service information group, he led the development of many of the company’s current on-line service and service training systems. He holds a master’s degree from Friends University in Wichita and is a certified A&P mechanic. He is certified as a Textron Six Sigma Green Belt.
Based on unit sales, Cessna Aircraft Company is the world’s largest manufacturer of general aviation airplanes. In 2006, Cessna delivered 1,239 aircraft, including 307 Citation business jets, and reported revenues of about $4.2 billion. Cessna has a current backlog of $11.9 billion. Since the company was originally established in 1927, some 190,000 Cessna airplanes have been delivered to nearly every country in the world. The global fleet of more than 5,000 Citations is the largest fleet of business jets in the world. More information about Cessna Aircraft Company is available at http://www.cessna.com.