Robert Sprayberry is the Airframe Section Manager for the Federal Aviation Administration’s East Certification Branch (ECB) based in Atlanta, GA. Robert serves the FAA by supervising all aspects of aircraft certification for airframe and heavy structures aspects under the purview of the ECB. His section oversees more than one hundred applicants and FAA approval holders across the United States and handles projects ranging from type certification, major/minor modifications, and major/minor repairs, just to name a few. In addition to this role, he also serves the FAA as a permanent member on the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) the Airworthiness Panel. Therein he provides expertise on all aspects of aircraft design and production certification. Lastly, Robert is one of a handful of FAA subject matter experts who is also a certified ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) auditor. Within that role, he provides short-term audit support in the area of airworthiness design and production on international missions ranging from full safety oversight audits to validation of state and civil aviation authority safety activities.

Prior to his current role, Robert was a United States diplomat serving as a senior official with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) from 2020 to 2023. At ICAO, Robert served as an international technical expert for aircraft design and production. He supported the Monitoring and Oversight (MO) Division under ICAO’s Air Navigation Bureau (ANB). Within the ANB, he provided direct audit support and oversight on international missions ranging from full safety oversight audits to validation of state and civil aviation authority safety activities.

Robert earned his Bachelors of Science in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2004. While at Georgia Tech, he participated in the cooperative education program as a student engineer at Delta Air Lines within their propulsion engineering department from 2000 to 2002. In total, Robert has more than 18 years of experience within multiple sectors of the aviation industry. He has provided mentoring throughout his career to Georgia Tech students, cooperative education programs, as well as multiple high school student-teams around the world via the Real World Design Challenge.