Guy Lennon’s been to six continents and all 50 states. So when he says he’s always wanted to settle down in Vancouver, it’s a pretty high compliment.
“This is where I had planned to come to spend the rest of my life, and I made that very well known to my whole family,” Lennon said, sitting in the pilot’s lounge at Pearson Field.
Lennon is the new manager of the city’s historic airport as of May 6. He moved here from Chandler, Ariz., after spending 18 years at the Chandler Municipal Airport. Before that, he was an engineer in the U.S. Air Force, working on stealth and reconnaissance aircraft programs and running support for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
His career took him all over, he said, but the Pacific Northwest was where he wanted to be. In particular, Pearson Field’s storied past proved a draw, as did the community’s unusually enthusiastic level of support for their historic airfield.
While many airports surrounded by residential areas deal with bouts of NIMBYism — airports, Lennon pointed out, are awfully loud — Vancouver and Pearson Field have grown together. The airport is part of the culture of the city.
“This is a great little airport, and I don’t mean to say little in a demeaning way,” Lennon said. “It’s a great community. The tenants all seem to love this place.”
“I think it’s postured really well to be here for a long time. It has a real stable community here in the airport community (and) the airport tenants,” he added.
His management philosophy? “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”
That could be a useful mantra going forward; when Lennon started the job last month, he inherited a clean slate of an airfield fresh off a giant operational overhaul. The city’s tune-up of airport policies was spurred by an internal audit that found mismanagement at Pearson Field had cost the city at least $63,000 and potentially up to $149,000 over the last decade.
The audit, obtained by the Columbian in March and analyzing January 2008 to August 2018, found that the missing funds came from a spate of out-of-date contracts, needlessly reserved hangars and unapproved rental discounts, among other issues.
It found “insufficient controls over safeguarding of public resources,” wrote City Auditor Rebecca Harder.
Harder’s audit was conducted after former airport manager Willie Williamson resigned in July. It concluded with a series of action items and new policies to be implemented before the next manager took over.
The list of recommendations included a better system of checks-and-balances between the airport staff and city leaders, regular contract reviews and new leasing software. The cleanup effort was spearheaded by Vancouver Program and Policy Development Manager Jan Bader.
“I have seen the audit, and it was pretty extensive,” Lennon said. “It appears as though they’ve done a great job fixing what they found.”
So far, he said, he hasn’t encountered any conflicts as a result of lingering resentment or cultural issues at the airport, with the staff or with any one of the 185 hangar and tie-down tenants.
“They worked hard. That’s not something you fix overnight,” Lennon said.
Taking off
Lennon’s spending most of his time on the job preparing for upcoming capital projects at the airport.
He and his staff are working to secure Federal Aviation Administration entitlement funds. First on the priority list this year is a resurfacing of the runway — Pearson’s already secured $900,000 for that work to be completed this year, Lennon said.
In the coming years, they’ll need to repave the taxiway and the tarmac, he added.
“They’ve done a really good job maintaining the airport, but there are some things that are a little dated,” Lennon said.
He’s also taking a cue from the Vancouver City Council, which recently approved a $4 million purchase for new LED streetlights that would cut their annual electricity budget in half.
Lennon is looking at upgrading the airport’s electricity infrastructure with LEDs in the building and on the runway. It’s a grant-eligible project he said.
“I’m anxious to get in every day to try and make things a little better.”
