Mazdak Hobbi serves as GAMA’s Senior Director, Engineering & Certification, leading the association’s technical policy and advocacy efforts on aircraft certification and initial airworthiness. He serves as GAMA’s primary liaison with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Certification Service (AIR) and works closely with GAMA member companies, FAA leadership, and international aviation authorities to advance certification processes that are safety-focused, efficient, predictable, and capable of accommodating new technologies.

Mazdak provides strategic guidance to GAMA members on complex certification and validation matters and helps develop industry strategies on certification modernization, Part 21 policy, design and production airworthiness, continued operational safety, international validation and regulatory harmonization, and emerging technologies, including Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). He also advises GAMA leadership and policy teams on regulatory and legislative matters affecting aircraft certification and works to align U.S. initiatives with EASA, Transport Canada, ANAC Brazil, UKCAA, ICAO, and other international partners.

Prior to joining GAMA, Mazdak spent more than 25 years with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in engineering, program management, management, and senior international leadership positions. Most recently, he served as the FAA Senior Representative to the European Union in Brussels, leading the agency’s strategic engagement with the European Commission, European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), EUROCONTROL, and other European aviation authorities.

Previously, as an Aircraft Certification Senior Foreign Representative, he led FAA aircraft certification engagement across more than 50 countries and worked extensively on international certification, validation, bilateral aviation safety agreements, and emerging technology policy. During this time, he helped coordinate FAA international engagement on significant aviation challenges including the Boeing 737 MAX return to service, global 5G radio-altimeter interference, post-Brexit implementation of the FAA – UK CAA Implementation Procedures for Airworthiness (IPA), and the development of harmonized certification approaches for emerging technologies. Mazdak also co-authored the National Aviation Authorities (NAA) Network Certification Roadmap for Advanced Air Mobility, helping establish a multilateral framework for greater alignment of AAM certification and validation among leading civil aviation authorities.

Earlier in his FAA career, Mazdak managed manufacturing oversight activities in the New York and New Jersey region and led the Propulsion and Flight Test Branch at the New York Aircraft Certification Office. As an aviation safety engineer, OMT lead and program manager, he supported certification, validation, production oversight, and continued operational safety activities across transport airplanes, general aviation aircraft, rotorcraft, engines, modifications, and delegated organizations, including major programs such as the AW609 tiltrotor, Bombardier C-Series/Airbus A220, Bombardier Global 7000, and Lycoming engines.

Mazdak holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Aerospace Engineering from the New York Institute of Technology and is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Reach Mazdak at +1 202-393-1500.