Personal Bio: Steve Csonka, President, Executive Director
Steve is a commercial aviation professional with 38 years of broad, strategic airline, aviation OEM, and SAF experience. Over his career, Steve has been a strong industry advocate who has worked in roles of developing pragmatic solutions to the challenges of aviation growth, and such engagement led him to accepting the current CAAFI Executive Director role in 2012. CAAFI (the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, www.caafi.org) is an industry partnership fostering the development and commercialization of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). CAAFI engages in public-private-partnership activities designed to convene the group of participants needed to stand up an entirely new industrial sector.
Steve also continues to serve in leadership, steering committee, consultancy, and BOD roles with multiple aviation industry organizations in areas of applying technology and business concepts to enable commercial progression with SAF, both through the work of CAAFI, as well as independent activities through his consultancy.
Steve’s overall industry engagement led to his current role as Executive Director of CAAFI (the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, www.caafi.org) where he leads this Public-Private Partnership working toward the development and commercialization of sustainable alternative jet
fuels (SAJF). He has been in this role since 2012, directing the CAAFI efforts of its 1200+ members and 500+ organizations who share the industry vision of enabling the decoupling of net carbon growth from expected sectoral growth. CAAFI engagement occurs through several work teams and public-private initiatives, and it seeks to be a force multiplier for a wide range of efforts required to achieve significant uptake of low net-carbon SAJF.
Steve’s overall industry engagement led to his current role as Executive Director of CAAFI (the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, www.caafi.org) where he leads this Public-Private Partnership working toward the development and commercialization of sustainable alternative jet
fuels (SAJF). He has been in this role since 2012, directing the CAAFI efforts of its 1200+ members and 500+ organizations who share the industry vision of enabling the decoupling of net carbon growth from expected sectoral growth. CAAFI engagement occurs through several work teams and public-private initiatives, and it seeks to be a force multiplier for a wide range of efforts required to achieve significant uptake of low net-carbon SAJF.
Steve is a commercial aviation professional with 37 years of broad, strategic airline and aviation OEM experience (GE Aircraft Engines, American Airlines, GE Aviation, and CAAFI). He holds BS and MS degrees in Aerospace Engineering. He has served in leadership, steering committee, and BOD roles with multiple aviation industry organizations (AIA, ICCAIA, IATA, GAMA, ICAO/CAEP, ATAG, Carbon War Room) in areas of technology and environmental progression. His CAAFI role has also led to appointments to advisory/leadership roles with the U.S SAF Grand Challenge, USDA/DOE BRDB TAC, the USDA/DOT/DOE/Industry Farm-to-Fly 2.0 initiative, USDA/NIFA/AFRI CAP projects, and study committee work of the National Research Council.
