Since the beginning of his aviation career Gert Jan (GJ) has worked as a Tower and/or Approach controller at military aerodromes in the Netherlands and abroad. He also worked as an Instructor and Head of the Netherlands military ATC school. At the RNLAF Head Quarters, GJ gathered expert knowledge on almost every topic in the Air Traffic Management (ATM) domain.

GJ has a lot of expertise in the fields of flight safety, environmental- and aviation- legislation. As the Permanent Netherlands Military ATM representative to EU and NATO, GJ ensured that international (civil) aviation legislation and regulation would not have an adverse effect on national and collective Defense Capabilities.

Throughout his career, GJ has chaired many groups, amongst others the EUROCONTROL Military Harmonisation Group and the NATO ATM/CNS Advisory Group.

 GJ is (co-) author of several significant documents in the (inter-) national military ATM community like the “Stockholm document” and the NATO and EDA “Military Aviation Strategy in the context of SES” and he actively participated in the drafting of, and negotiations over the text of the EASA Basic Regulation EC 2018/1139 and the Regulation (EU) 2024/2803 on the implementation of the Single European Sky (recast).

At the Military Aviation Authority the Netherlands, GJ and his team developed the Netherlands Military Aviation Requirements for Military Aerodromes (NLD MAR ADR), Netherlands Special Military Aviation Requirements for Military Rules of the Air (NLD SMAR MilRA) and the Netherlands Military Aviation Requirements for Air navigation Services (NLD MAR ANS), based EASA legislation.