04/27/2016
Congratulations to our friends at Centennial Airport for another First Place Balchen/Post Award for Airport Snow and Ice removal. We look forward to working with you and growing our SnowBOSS system with you season over season.
Congratulations to Team APA! Balchen/Post Award for excellence in snow and ice removal, 1st place Large GA Airport.
A letter from APA Director of Operations, Brian Lewis
Hi All,
I'm at the NE AAAE Snow Symposium and it was my honor to accept the Balchen Post award for large General Aviation airport for excellence in snow removal. The criteria used for the award are: preparation, effectiveness, timeliness and post-storm. As you know, we have won this award more times than any other airport, which is attributable to the hard work of all the members of our staff.
Dave and Lorie deserve a big portion of the credit for their leadership and oversight of our snow removal program over the years, with their tireless efforts to continually discover and implement new methods, techniques and technologies to make our snow removal program the best it can be, despite all of the challenges unique to our airport. Not even to mention all the crazy hours they work during storms.
This past season has had some difficult storms, and our maintenance staff routinely makes sacrifices of personal time to ensure the airport is safe and operable, even in the worst conditions when most of the rest of the city gets to stay home. It's difficult to understand how mentally and physically taxing it is to sit behind the wheel of a large piece of equipment for hours on end until you've actually done it, and their dedication makes it possible for aircraft to safely get in and out at all hours. I cannot say enough about the work that they do.
Our Operations staff continues to do an excellent job of coordinating our snow removal while working in challenging conditions (with sometimes challenging controllers and tenants) to provide outstanding service to our users. We're fortunate to have such a great Ops staff (including interns) that is flexible, and always seeking to improve. Digging out and fixing lights and signs in the middle of the night is no small ditty, but they get the job done so we all can shine.
Not all airports enjoy the support of the senior staff that is absolutely necessary for a program to be effective at the highest level. Robert has always been extremely supportive of our program and made sure we have all the tools and flexibility we need to accomplish the mission. Roxy, Gwen, Kelly, Deborah, Mike and their departments have all been instrumental in the support of snow removal operations, whether it involves help with staffing, dealing with insurance claims, explaining to the board why we're occasionally over-budget, providing research, publicizing our efforts, shoveling walks, etc, etc; absolutely everyone has helped our program in some way or another.
Regardless of whether we win awards or not, we have an amazing program that other airports aim to emulate and we can all take pride in that. Sometimes it is a thankless job, so I want to make certain that everyone knows they are appreciated. Thank you all for your selfless contributions this, and every, snow season.
Brian
