Almost every time Aviation Week editors pause to consider which people have had the greatest impact - positive or negative - on aviation and aerospace in the preceding year, there is a spirited internal debate. More often than not, the debate continues externally - among our erudite readers - after the Person of the Year is named and our feature published.

Two of the strongest contenders for 2008 are detailed below and on the facing page. Editors who saw the biggest story of the year in the rise of European aerospace companies as contenders to be reckoned with for major U.S. defense programs argued strongly for Ralph Crosby, who heads the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co.'s EADS North America.

Other editors were just as insistent that the most profound development of 2008 was even broader - the extent to which aerospace became a truly global industry. Hence, they proferred "the outsourced worker" as Person of the Year. That case was bolstered late in the game as a strike at Boeing, in which outsourcing was the main bone of contention, crippled production of the commercial aviation world's prime example of the new way of doing business, the 787.

Whether or not you think we got it right with our ultimate selection of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, join in the discussion about the Person of the Year on our defense blog, Ares, at AviationWeek.com/ares. (By the way, we settled on Gates as Person of the Year well before President-elect Barack Obama decided to keep him on.) We look forward to hearing from you.