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 Steve Bassett is chairman & CEO of The Communications Workshop, LLC. He is an instrument-rated pilot with more than three decades of aviation and communications experience. He was trained in aviation accident investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) at the NTSB Academy. During his aviation career he served as senior vice president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), executive vice president of Air Vegas Airlines, and president of the United States Air Tour Association (USATA).
Prior to aviation, Steve was a network and major market television and radio sports broadcaster. He announced college basketball for TVS/NBC Sports, reported for ABC Sports, served as sports director and sports anchor at WJLA-TV in Washington, DC and KTVI-TV in St. Louis, anchored television sportscasts at WIS-TV in Columbia, SC and WBAL-TV in Baltimore, was play-by-play announcer for college basketball and football for the Universities of Maryland and Missouri, called basketball for George Washington University and the University of South Carolina, hosted radio sports talk programs for WMAL Radio and WTEM Radio in Washington, DC, and served on the television broadcast team for Washington Redskins pre-season football games in the nation's capital. He still does some sportscasting on a volunteer basis handling the play-by-play for televised high school sporting events in Howard County, Maryland as a public service to the county school system.
He also is an award-winning corporate video producer. His video production work includes productions in a variety of industries including transportation, aviation, medical and health care, sports and recreation, high-tech, food, and construction.
Following broadcasting, Bassett began his aviation management career with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) serving as vice president of communications, vice president of state affairs, and senior vice president of government and technical affairs where he headed the association's Congressional, lobbying, state legislative and technical aviation operations. Notably, he headed a team which authored Aviation: The Future Is Now, the first definitive work prepared for the federal government on transition to the Global Positioning Satellite System as the eventual precision instrument landing system in the United States and recommended against adoption of Microwave Landing Systems as the successor to ILS.
Bassett assumed the presidency of the United States Air Tour Association in 1996. Among his other many achievements for the air tour community, Bassett is credited with helping plan and implement a comprehensive strategy which led to Part 135 and 121 commercial air tour companies being included in the post-9/11 airline financial aid package. The effort pumped millions of federal grant dollars into the air tour industry financially staggered by significantly reduced tourism following the attacks. Bassett also successfully negotiated with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and North American Air Defense Command a procedure to get air tour companies flying quickly following the September attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and emergency grounding of all flights in the U.S. While most others were grounded, USATA had many air tour operators flying VFR within 72 hours of the attack. He has testified frequently before various committees of Congress on a wide spectrum of air tour and other aviation issues.
Bassett began consulting on crisis media management in the early 90s counseling Congressional offices on dealing with media ambushes. His broadcasting and communications career naturally provided him a unique expertise on the news media which he began to share with various other industries. He is now one of the nation's foremost experts in aviation crisis management and disaster response. He also counsels companies in the cold storage warehouse industry on the broad spectrum of crisis management – being prepared in the event of a disaster. His popular Coping With Crisis 101 and News Media 101 seminars are recognized as two of the best training programs in the country. He also created and teaches the Flight Ops: Improving Internal Communications program.
He has written numerous papers on effective communications and presents "Did I Ever Tell You About The Time" – an entertaining and often laugh-out-loud presentation relating stories about his career as a sportscaster and success in business and management.
He is a Vietnam combat veteran having served with the prestigious 4th Infantry Division Recon Unit operating out of Pleiku and Americal Division operating out of Chu Lai in South Vietnam from 1969-1970. As an Army Sergeant, Bassett received the Bronze Star Medal, Combat Infantry Badge (CIB), Air Medal and other commendations.
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