INTERVIEWS THURSDAY FOR AIRPORT MANAGER

With new fire and police chiefs on the job, the city of Cape Girardeau will focus its attention on hiring a manager for Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

City representatives will interview candidates for the job Thursday.

Airport board chairman J. Fred Waltz said four or five candidates will be interviewed. Names of the candidates have not been released.

Waltz said the city needs an airport manager who will maximize the airport's potential and use it to promote economic growth.

"We don't want someone necessarily to manage what we've got," Waltz said. "We want someone who will be proactive in the growth mode."

Cape Girardeau Regional Airport has been without a permanent manager since the mid-November departure of Greg Chenoweth, who ran the facility since December 1994. Chenoweth resigned to become manager of an airport at Chandler, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix.

Walter Denton, administrative assistant to Cape Girardeau City Manager Michael Miller, has been serving as interim airport manager.

Candidates for the position will tour the airport prior to individually meeting with an interview panel consisting of Miller, Denton, Waltz, control tower chief Larry Davis, human resources director Dan Ward and Convention and Visitors Bureau director Mary Miller.

The panel will meet again on Friday to choose a finalist. A background and reference check on the finalist will then be conducted.

"I think the process will go relatively quickly after these interviews. In a month or so we should have someone hired," Waltz said.

Though the members of the interview panel will offer input, the final hiring decision will be Miller's.

Waltz said it is vital for the next airport manager to take an active role expanding the airport's use for both commercial and general aviation.

With more takeoffs and landings, the airport can possibly regain some of the federal dollars it has lost in recent years. A decline in traffic led the Federal Aviation Administration to eliminate funding for the airport's air traffic control tower in 1995.

"We are looking to increase operations. One reason why we lost the tower is we did not have enough operations," Waltz said.

The city currently operates the tower.

Waltz said the airport has been listed by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce as one of the city's most underutilized resources for economic development.

The new airport manager, he said, must take the lead in getting businesses to move to the industrial area near the airport, as well as promoting the airport throughout the region.

More activity at the airport would help create jobs, Waltz said.