Airport manager leaving position
DUNBAR TWP. – After nearly 5 1/2 years at the helm of the Joseph A. Hardy/Connellsville Airport, it is time for airport manager Sam Cortis to fly. Cortis, hired for the position in January 2003, is leaving this week to take a higher paying non-aviation-related job. His last day is Thursday.
Cortis said Tuesday he has enjoyed his years on the job, and he has worked with very professional and helpful people at the state Bureau of Aviation and other agencies.
Although he is giving up his airport job, Cortis said he would still keep his airplane.
“I will never give up the airplane. Once you do that, it’s with you forever,” Cortis said.
Cortis, 52, is a licensed pilot, a former coal miner and business owner. When he took the job without benefits, he was given a salary of $25,000 per year. That salary has increased a few thousand dollars over the years, but not enough to justify Cortis staying, he said.
Remaining at the airport is secretary Melissa Chomiak.
Cortis, of Uniontown, was initially hired as operation manager in September 2002 before being named airport manager in January 2003, after the departure of former manager Diana Wally. Cortis’ hiring did not come without controversy.
Cortis received the three necessary votes to become the manager of the airport following the announcement that another person had dropped his name from consideration. Current board member Fred Davis and former board members Timothy Mahoney and Martin Griglak voted to hire Cortis, with former board member Bob Schiffbauer and Jesse Wallace abstaining from the vote to hire him.
Several months after Cortis was hired, the airport authority learned that decision would mean the loss of $60,000 over the next three years from the Fayette Enterprise Community to fund the position.
In a June 2, 2003, letter from Robert C. Junk Jr. of Fay-Penn Economic Development Council, who also serves as FEC community development manager, Junk wrote that because the authority has not complied with the FECs request to hire a “qualified airport manager,” the funding would not be granted.
The letter stated that in addition to the $20,000 per year for the first three years, funding for years four, five and six also had been withdrawn. The letter also stated that the authority failed to submit an amended application for redirection and reallocation of the funding following a meeting in January.
Since Cortis took over, there have been numerous changes and improvements at the airport. Those changes include new airport authority members and new county commissioners, as well as safety and other infrastructure improvements. Plans are under way for a runway extension project, which has been delaying because of a lack of funding, among other setbacks.
When Cortis began as manager, his office was located in a small, old building that also served as a garage and originally used to house snow-removal equipment. Now he works in an office at a new $2.3 million general aviation terminal, opened two years ago. Cortis said the current “runway safety area project” eventually would be a runway extension project.
“It’s come a long way,” Cortis said of the airport since he started.
Cortis said water, and sewerage upgrades and safety upgrades have been done in recent years, in addition to the construction of the terminal building.
The general aviation terminal is located atop a hill at the airport across the entrance road from the $3 million Fayette Area Coordinated Transportation transit center. Operations began at the FACT transit center in late 2005 and at the new terminal building in 2006. A long-awaited runway extension project is in now the works, with the first phase of the runway extension – a natural gas line replacement project – completed last summer.
Other projects – ranging from a master plan update, water system upgrades and rehabilitation of the access road and hangar apron to the purchase of snow-removal equipment – have taken place at the airport in the last few years.
A two-page listing of projects at the airport in the last five years, which also includes an airport-wide sewer system upgrade and all costs associated with the terminal project and beginning runway extension costs, totals nearly $6.3 million.
The new 8,000-square-foot general aviation terminal, converted from a historic 24,000-square-foot airplane hangar, is now the showpiece of the airport. The building includes a public area in front with tables and large glass windows overlooking the runway.
Features in the building, which houses the offices for the airport, include a conference room, a pilot (debriefing) room, restrooms and a flight plan room with computers for pilots to utilize to map out future journeys. Office space that can be rented out will eventually help with income at the airport.
The terminal building features old wooden planks throughout the inside that were once the roof of the building originally constructed in 1941. The shell of the old hangar remains, and now serves mostly as the covered parking area.
Cortis said the former Taylorcraft Building, as the old terminal was known, sat unused for years before getting a new lease on life. To finish the terminal, a 20-foot addition was added in front for the public area. Conceptual drawings, now hung as artwork, are featured throughout the terminal building.
The airport, which was renamed after Hardy in January 2007 to coincide with the former county commissioner’s 84th birthday, has funding problems because it is a standalone entity, Cortis said.
The airport relies on the sales of fuel and hangar rentals as well as a little stipend from the county. The end of a years long lawsuit regarding the Tol Aviation building has gone a long way to the airport having a balanced budget, but Cortis said getting money for that building merely takes the airport out of the hole.
Because the Federal Aviation Administration funding bill is stalled, exactly when money will be freed up for airports is unknown. While Cortis has been working to find a refurbished fuel truck because the airport’s current truck is damaged beyond repair, that quest, as well as the one to find money to pay for purchasing such a truck, soon will be in the hands of someone else.
For Cortis, it makes more sense for him to take another job for his future.
“I can make more money somewhere else,” Cortis said. “With the money I can be making, it could be the difference between working until I am 65 or 60.”
Although it has taken years for the runway extension project to get off the ground, Cortis said steps are being taken in that direction. He said the master plan has been completed and that is an important part of the process. He said runway extension projects at other airports have taken more than 10 years.
In March, the engineer for the Fayette County Airport Authority said the runway extension project is a year behind because of the various permitting requirements.
Bill Shiderly, project manager for Michael Baker Jr. Inc. of Beaver, said currently a contract with the Bureau of Aviation is under way to extend the runway to 3,832 feet, in what is being called the runway shift project. The current runway length is 3,458 feet. Shiderly said the Bureau of Aviation then directed Baker to only make plans to extend to 3,832 feet. He said plans are to bid the project this year and begin construction next year.
Once the first extension is done, Shiderly said he is hopeful another permit won’t have to be submitted to get approval for the 4,500-foot runway extension.
Shiderly said the difference in cost is about $5.5 million to extend to 3,832 feet and $21 million to extend to 4,500 feet.
Numerous elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Hollidaysburg, and U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Johnstown, have said getting funding to extend the runway at the airport is a priority.
The airport authority is expected to act on Cortis’ resignation at its May 20 meeting.
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