Airport manager hired
During Tuesday’s monthly meeting, the airport authority took separate action to accept $30,000 a year for two years from Hardy to use to pay a portion of the salary of a new manager as well as approved a motion to hire Mary Lou Fast of Uniontown for the position. She will start work Oct. 6. Authority Chairman Terry “Tuffy” Shallenberger said Hardy agreed to help financially toward getting a qualified manager and drew up an agreement towards that end.
Hardy, a former county commissioner, is the millionaire founder of 84 Lumber Co.
Solicitor Mark Rowan said Hardy’s attorney drafted the agreement and he made a few changes. Rowan urged the board to approve the agreement, adding that they could insert the name when they determined who the manager would be.
The former manager, Sam Cortis, left in May after 5½ years at the helm of the airport. Cortis was making about $25,000 per year. Fast will be making $60,000 annually.
Rowan said the authority will put up $30,000 per year for the manager’s wages in addition to Hardy’s $30,000, for a total salary of $60,000.
The board first voted to accept Hardy’s donation and then voted to hire Fast.
Board member Mark “Kingfish” Wasler said he conducted numerous interviews and received a half-dozen applicants for the position before recommending Fast.
Wasler said there was another candidate he felt was qualified who withdrew their application.
Current lineman Stanley “Stush” Horvath, who works at the Joseph A. Hardy/Connellsville Airport, later said he had submitted and later withdrew an application for the position.
Fast previously worked as an assistant to the manager at the Pottstown-Limerick Airport in Pottstown, Montgomery County, from 1985 through 1999. Her resume states the airport handles 42,000 annual operations.
According to Google, the Pottstown-Limerick Airport opened in April 1938. It is owned by PECO, which also owns the nearby Limerick Power Plant, but it is open to the public.
The asphalt runway is 3,371 by 75 feet.
The airport hosts 90 single-engine airplanes, 7 multi-engine airplanes, 3 jet-engine airplanes, and 3 helicopters. The airport is permanently closed to aircraft over 13,500 pounds.
“She worked in handling airport operations and was a former assistant manager,” Wasler said.
Wasler added that Fast worked in securing grants, on construction projects, in human resources and accounting.
“She is everything we need in a manager,” Wasler said. “She is very passionate about aviation.”
Wasler said the airport needs a lot of TLC and also someone who “knows what is going on in the industry.”
Shallenberger said Fast is “very impressive to talk to and very enthusiastic.” He said the two-year contract is negotiable after the first year.
The authority will also pay 70 percent of the health insurance and she will receive two weeks vacation and three sick days after three months.
Office manager Milissa Chomiak said there isn’t health insurance offered for the other employees at the airport, which includes her and three linemen.
According to Fast’s resume, she received a Bachelor of Science degree from Mansfield State College and has worked as an office manager in Uniontown since January 2005.
Fast has also worked as a regional marketing manager for Ascent Technologies in Parrish, N.Y.; as an office manager for Nason & Cullen Inc. of King of Prussia and as a bookkeeper at Murray’s Auto and Robert Fast Rentals, according to her resume.
She said she took continuing education credits in aviation at Penn State at a FAA conference held annually in Hershey from 1990 through 1999.