posted Dec 13th, 2007 - It is not a secret that the Unites States Parachute Association (USPA) has been working on hiring a new Executive Director for quite a while. Chris Needels has had this position for 14 years and announced his plan to retire a while ago.

The December issue of USPA's Parachutist officially introduced the new Executive Director, Ed Scott, who has already worked for USPA for 11 years as a the Director of Government Relations.

The NSL News recorded several live interviews with competitors and VIP's at the USPA Nationals 2007. Most of them have already been uploaded and posted with earlier stories that covered the event.

Chris Needels took some extra time for a live NSL News interview, as well, while he managed and supervised the media coverage of the USPA Nationals 2007. He asked the NSL News to wait uploading it until his successor would officially be selected.

Time has come for the interview and the story, while Chris Needels looks forward to spending the holiday season off duties on his farm near the USPA headquarters.

Chris Needels spent 20 years in the US Army before he became the Executive Director for USPA where he spent the next 14 years of his life. He has now retired from his USPA position and still plans to do something else for the next 10 years.

He did not expect to be the USPA Executive Director for such a long time period and looks back at an interesting and challenging job. He said that the economical recession and the air traffic control issues after 9/11 made it very difficult for skydiving and parachuting. However, USPA and the sport recovered and are still going strongly.

Chris Needels is still an active jumper. He missed participating at the USPA Nationals 2007 after competing at seven of the last ten championships. He was too busy with his part of the event preparation and the "labor of love", which was focused on this year's media and TV production.

He enjoys and still favors the current format of the USPA Nationals where all disciplines take place at the same place over a certain period of time. His goal has been to bring skydiving into the sports sections of the newspapers and change mainstream's understanding of skydiving. He sees the same goal still as an important part of USPA's work in the future.

At the same time, Chris Needels believes that it is important for skydiving to maintain tight bonds within the community and with the people who like to spend the weekends together.

Finally, Chris Needels said that it is important for USPA to keep the membership well informed, and he sees common ground to cooperate with the NSL in this area. USPA is doing its own share, and he also thought that the NSL is doing a good job on keeping the community and membership up-to-date.

He concluded the interview with a personal view of his own future in skydiving: "I may not be working for USPA in a few more months. But I very much intend to see you all at the dropzone."

The video of the live interview can be viewed by clicking here.