Search for airport manager begins. Brainerd Lakes Regional (KBRD), Brainerd, Minnesota.

A rough outline of the make-up of the search committee for a new manager for the Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport was discussed Monday by the airport commission’s Personnel and Budget Committee.

Meeting in the administrator’s conference room in the Crow Wing County Historic Courthouse, airport commission Chair Andy Larson and member Rachel Reabe Nystrom talked about what segments of the public they might like to see represented on the panel.

Also attending the meeting as observers were airport commission members Beth Pfingsten and recently appointed member Jeff Czeczok. Before the meeting Czeczok had questioned a recent airport commission decision to appoint Pfingsten to the Personnel and Budget Committee. As a result, Pfingsten decided to attend as an observer.

Larson and Nystrom talked about a search committee that would include three airport commission members, representatives of law enforcement and fire fighting agencies, general aviation, commercial aviation and people with knowledge of aviation. They discussed a panel that would have about seven or eight members. Among the names that were mentioned as possibilities were Crow Wing County Sheriff Todd Dahl, Brainerd Police Chief Corky McQuiston, Brainerd Fire Chief Kevin Stunek and Howard Pihlaja, a retired Delta pilot who now is a private pilot.

Larson said they would seek balance on the search committee.

“I don’t want to rush the process,” he said. “My concern is that I want to keep it expeditious,” he said.

The committee expects to have a list of names available to the full airport commission at its next meeting.

Source:  http://brainerddispatch.com