Flight Plan

Global marketing led by EMBA grad Clint Clouatre

Course corrections are routine for pilots, and one made by Clint Clouatre (’90) set him on the way to new heights.

Clouatre was recently named vice president of marketing for Embraer Executive Jets. The West Monroe, La., native earned his Executive MBA at Georgia Southern while working as a flight test engineer in Savannah.

He has had a life-long love of flight and had considered a career as a military pilot. With less-than-perfect eyesight, he knew that was not going to be an option.

Instead, Clouatre earned an undergrad degree in engineering, hoping to break into the aerospace industry. “Flight testing was a lot of fun,” he said, “but I didn’t want to be an engineer the rest of my life – I had an interest in business. I was starting to look at other schools throughout the Southeast, and Georgia Southern was offering the Executive MBA. The idea of stopping work to go back to college was not nearly as attractive as a school I could commute to.”

Clouatre was accepted into Georgia Southern’s program with a cohort of 13 colleagues, nearly all of whom brought significant professional experiences to the table. “We had a great team of students,” he said. “It was an interesting cross section. I was just fortunate the opportunity presented itself, and it was an absolutely incredible experience.”

He found the EMBA a great fit for his evolving interests. “Engineering was very difficult for me,” Clouatre said. “I found business much more intuitive.”

Today, Clouatre is responsible for the worldwide marketing initiatives of Embraer’s Executive Jets division. Headquartered in Brazil, the company employs more than 17,000 people around the globe and earned net revenues in 2010 of $5.3 billion. The company designs and manufactures four product lines: commercial airliners, agricultural airplanes, defense aircraft and executive jets.

In addition to Brazil, Embraer operates facilities in France, Portugal, Spain, China and the U.S., including its brand new $50 million, 80,000-square-foot executive jet plant in Melbourne, Fla. Clouatre is proud of the company’s contribution to job growth in Florida, especially in an economic down time. It is expected to eventually employ 200.

For as long as he can remember, Clouatre has loved flying – a good thing, since the number of flights he is taking between continents just took a big leap. A licensed pilot at the age of 25, “I had always wanted to go into aviation,” he said. The rest of his family wasn’t all that interested, though. “My father only flew one time and that was with me!”