Tehachapi News

City names airport manager

 

Tehachapi's new Airport Manager Tom Glasgow inspected the airport with employee Gaston Patterson Thursday, Oct. 15 –- Glasgow’s first day on the job –- and confirmed what he already knew.

"Everything is so cutting-edge here," he said.

"This is a great airport. It has new paint, new lights, it's well kept up. Meticulous. The staff is great."

The airport, he said, "Looks like brand new."

He said the late Dave Zweigle, the airport manager and assistant city manager who was killed in a crash of his Czech L-29 jet trainer July 4, left a substantial legacy on which to build.

"Dave had a lot of ideas and a vision. I am fortunate to be able to see through [on] his ideas and vision."

He said he’ll work on attracting customers for fuel and installing a GPS-based approach system for use in all kinds of weather.

An airport, he said, “survives by leasing property and selling jet fuel.”

He said the Tehachapi Municipal Airport is positioned to attract a certain clientele.

“There’s so much here – apples, vineyards, trains, planes, artists, talent,” he said. “We are 50 miles as the crow flies from North Hollwyood. From Van Nuys to here takes 18 minutes with a turbine engine, 45 minutes in a smaller plane.”

 

‘A fun job’

 Glasgow knows his airports.

 A professional pilot and administrator, Glasgow's resume includes a degree in airport management, island-hopping in Hawaii in old DC-3s, working as a ground service technician and hauling celebrities around the world in private jets.

“We believe strongly that our interview process has led us to a highly qualified and dedicated aviation professional,” City Manager Greg Garrett said in announcing Glasgow’s selection. “I am personally excited to welcome him to our team.”

Glasgow is a rated pilot in the Hawker series (HS-125), Gulfstream II and III (G-1159) and the Douglas DC-3, and is a Certified Flight Instructor with training in safety and ground operations.

During his flying career he has clocked 8,000 hours in the air, and counting.

As a contract pilot with several companies that transport business executives and entertaiment icons, he flies from Van Nuys Airport to different ariports around North America on a weekly basis.

His repeat clients include Axl Rose, Larry King, Diane Sawyer and Tiger Woods, he said, and others of notoriety he preferred not to name.

He plans be on site at the Tehachapi Airport on weekends when there is increased air traffic, as well as Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, taking Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.

Glasgow, a four-year resident of Bear Valley Springs, said the part-time management position at the Tehachapi Municipal Airport is his ideal job, and it’s in his own back yard.

"I was so excited when I saw this," he said, pulling out a folded copy of the city's advertisement for airport manager that ran in the Tehachapi News on Sept. 2.

“I’m fortunate to walk into this job,” he said. “My degree is in this job. It’s always what I wanted to do. It’s a hard field to break into. It’s a fun job.”

Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Glasgow, 43, grew up in Huntington Beach and graduated from Marina High School. His father Jim, a mechanical engineer, worked for Boeing.

Glasgow earned a degree in Aviation Business Administration in 1993 from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University at Prescott, Ariz.

Glasgow learned to fly while he studied for his degree, landing a job after graduation with Skydive Hawaii at Mokuleia on Oahu, dropping skydivers on the North Shore and flying as a commercial glider pilot and tow plane pilot.

Leaving the sky games to the tourists, he landed a job flying cargo on a DC3 out of Honolulu, delivering necessities to the islands.

The daily morning flights ran from Oahu to Molokai to Maui to Lanai to the big island of Hawaii and back to Oahu.

In the afternoons he delivered cargo to Kauai, the only island to the west of Oahu.

The two pilots not only flew the airplane, they loaded and unloaded the cargo. Their day began at 3 a.m.

"We were in good shape," Glasgow said.

The loads included 1,800-pound containers of heavy equipment, mechanical items, engines, water pumps, food – everything the residents needed.

Glasgow said they wrapped straps around themselves to pull the loads up the deck – heaviest first to go to the front -- inside the DC-3, which sits at three-degree angle.

“We waxed the wooden floor with Johnson’s Minwax to make it slippery,” he said.

 More cargo

 Glasgow came back to the mainland to work for Million Air, a fixed base operator in Long Beach that provides service, fuel and maintenance.

He later got a job as a pilot with the company next door, Catalina Flying Boats, delivering cargo by DC-3 to Catalina Island’s Airport in the Sky, which is perched on top of a mountain.

“We did a lot of flying at night,” Glasgow said of the Catalina run. “We would land on a parallel runway. It’s dirt.”

He also delivered the Wall Street Journal, picking up the papers “almost still hot” at Riverside and taking them to Phoenix every night.

Glasgow still works as a flight captain and manager for his next three employers: Executive Jet Management/Berkshire Hathaway of Cincinnati, Ohio; Camarillo-based Sun Air Jets; and Superior Industries out of Van Nuys.

He and his wife Lisa have a three-and-a-half year old son, Bodie.

Lisa Glasgow’s parents are Betsy Trombley and the late Russ Trombley of Bear Valley Springs. Her sister Niki Trombley is a local artist.

In carrying out Dave Zewigle’s vision, Glasgow promised “to be as hands-on as I can” and to be open to all ideas about the airport.

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 Airport commissioners get the news

Three of the Airport Commissioners who could be contacted did not know the new airport manager had been hired, and none knew Tom Glasgow.

The airport manager is a city employee and the hiring process moves through the city.

“Kathie [airport assistant Mikulovsky] said they had several candidates,” said Airport Commission Chairman Eric Hansen, chief test pilot for Lockheed in Palmdale.

As for consulting the commission on the selection, he said, “We thought it might be something nice to do, but city business is city business.”

“It’s news to me,” said Commissioner Dale Hawkins.

“it’s news to me,” said newly appointed Commissioner Mark Pestana.

The only (former) commissioner Glasgow knows personally is Doug Stone, who recently vacated the post to which Pestana was appointed.

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Posted Oct. 16, 2009; Print edition Vol. 110, No. 28, publication date Oct. 22, 2009.