Happy New Year!

Your County Airports staff wishes you a prosperous and safe 2005. We realized it had been too long (last summer) since you've heard from us, so we wanted to give you a much overdue update on what's going on with your three airports. We have definitely been busy these last six months and we hope 2005 is even busier, as we try to make your airports better each year.

A couple of big changes that have happened since our last newsletter are the hiring of our own Larry Feldman, former PAO Airport Supervisor, as our new Business Manager (Congratulations Larry!). We also added another new staff member, Ken Betts, as our Noise Abatement Program Coordinator. Ken was selected as the best candidate from over 60 applicants and came to us from the Mineta San Jose International Airport noise program. We received final approval of our FAR Part 150 Noise Study at RHV by the FAA, so Ken is going to be very busy. We've also completed several construction projects at RHV and have made it through the toughest part of our Master Planning process for both Reid-Hillview and South County Airports. We don't want to speak to soon, but we have a lot of new FAA funded projects in the pattern waiting for clearance for landing, so keep watching in future newsletters for updates on pending construction! In cooperation with our Airport Associations, we held two very successful Tenant Appreciation BBQ's and Airport Days at PAO and RHV. Thanks to all the volunteers from both the PAAA and RHVAA for two great public outreach events!

So, as you can tell it was an eventful fall, and we once again enjoyed seeing all of you who visited our airports during the holiday season. Stop in for a cup of coffee or just stop by for a chat the next time you are passing the office.

      Happy landings in 2005, Carl

And the Winner Is ...

In the flagship summer issue of our new airport newsletter, the editors extended a challenge to the airport community to submit the most creative entry for a name for our prized publication. As you probably noticed right away, the winning name is S.C.A.N., or Santa Clara Airport News.

The winner, Jim Reyner, began working as an A&P mechanic with the West Valley Flying Club in 1994. These days, he does most of his work out of Palo Alto. He holds the County Airports in highest regards, stating that they provide excellent service while being very hospitable to mechanics.

Jim lives in Santa Clara and says, "I received an email from Eric Peterson and just assembled the elements of the situation and came up with an acronym that made sense to me."

Along with our congratulations, Jim will receive a month's free tie-down (or equivalent), not to mention the satisfaction of seeing his winning name on the cover of all future newsletters.

View or download the Print Version of our Winter 2005 newsletter.