The first thing to say, and first thing to emphasize also, is that this post is not intended to demean or disparage the fine career of Phillip Washington, the Biden administration's nominee for FAA Administrator. As not only the cognescenti realize, his elevation from CEO of Denver Int'l Airport to the head of FAA has not drawn sufficient favor so far in the Senate.
Yet, without detracting at all from his career, take another reading of the quoted material above from Acting Administrator Billy Nolen. The point here (imo) is that in ordinary times, yes, some sort of uber-technocrat would be fine to head up FAA, even without significant aviation experience. But these times, my friends, these are not the ordinary variety. Pick a major issue, even just one, and try to convince your loyal neighborhood SLF/attorney that all you need is management finesse, even though your mind gets lost real, real fast when the discourse gets into the actual workings of the "NAS" and its many components. There are at present a good many open issues confronting the "NAS" and knowing how to manage in a general sense will not be the best choice for dealing with such issues.
And I'm putting "NAS" in quotation marks and leaving it there. The way in which Mr. Nolen articulated, or recited if you prefer, "NAS" at the Senate hearing proves something. I don' t mean pronounciation - I mean knowledge, familiarity, depth, devotion and just plain commitment. He's devoted his career to getting things right, and he knows what those things are, how they work. Like the old E.F. Hutton spot, he's acquired the right to the top job the old fashioned way - he earned it.
Bonus question at confirmation hearing: "Mr. Nominee, and I quote, 'There's no one on Two-Eight Right but you'. Discuss, please, and include your views on 'resiliency or redundancy' on one hand, and 'luck' on the other."