John Steward
Taking care of the environment
It is apt that SouthWings volunteer pilot John Steward carries his last name. In his work and his volunteer efforts, Steward looks after the environment and has done so for his entire professional life.
Logbook
Ratings / Instrument-rated private pilot, airplane single-engine land,
UAS Part 107
Affiliations / A member of the National Environmental Health Association, the American Public Health Association, the Sierra Club, Georgia Trails Alliance, and Climate Reality
Favorite Aircraft / “The Lockheed Constellation, which I remember from childhood.”
Extra / In a recent year, 50 SouthWings volunteer pilots flew a record 170 conservation flights to educate 74 nonprofit organizations, 31 media organizations, 19 government officials, and 13 educational institutions, benefiting more than 70 nonprofit conservation partners and resulting in more than 130 media pieces informed by those flights.
southwings.org“Flying SouthWings missions is my current passion. I’ve flown dozens of SouthWings conservation missions in the Southeast since purchasing my Piper Saratoga,” says Steward, who bought his 1999 Saratoga in early 2021. He dubbed the airplane “The Green Queen,” and bases at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport (PDK) in Atlanta.
SouthWings is a Southeast U.S.-based nonprofit organization. It provides a perspective through flight “to better understand and help solve pressing environmental issues in the southeast,” according to the organization. It is headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, and has more than 50 volunteer pilots who fly their own aircraft in 15 states, identifying environmental concerns and issues such as oil spills, providing hurricane relief, and addressing other natural and unnatural disasters, often with decision makers, politicians, and media on board.
Steward is an environmentalist and has worked in environmental and public health for more than 45 years. He worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, the Indian Health Service, and recently retired from Georgia State University, where he taught public health.
He earned his private pilot certificate in 1980. “My work colleague was taking private pilot lessons at the local FBO. I followed his recommendation to take ground school and think about taking lessons, but I couldn’t wait to get into the cockpit! I learned to fly in six months.”
Steward then owned a Cessna 172 and flew throughout the Western U.S. for several years. He and his wife, Pat, moved to Atlanta in 1986. He earned his instrument rating in 1987.
“My favorite/most impactful flight was to Waycross, Georgia, with a news crew. We met the St. Mary’s riverkeeper and flew around the complete perimeter of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge where a proposed titanium mine threatened the environmental quality of the world class wetlands,” he said. “When The Conservation Fund purchased the proposed mining site and mineral rights, it effectively ended the threat of the mine and protected the swamp. This land acquisition was the culmination of years of advocacy by numerous environmental organizations, scientists, and concerned citizens, as well as efforts by elected officials to pass legislation to protect the area.”
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