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Phil Ridenour is the new Hagerstown Regional Airport Director. (By Kevin G. Gilbert, Staff Photographer) |
For new Hagerstown Regional Airport Director Phil Ridenour, the transition from airport fire chief to head honcho has felt seamless.
"Just, one day I was fire chief, the next afternoon I was airport director," he said during an interview at the airport Feb.17, two days after he was appointed by the Washington County Commissioners to replace former director Carolyn Motz, who retired Jan. 1.
Although his previous job description was to oversee aircraft rescue and firefighting, Ridenour said there is little in his new job in which he did not already have a hand, as his role at the airport had expanded to include administering grants, developing policies and writing budgets.
"I'm not saying that was a selling point for anybody to give me the job or award me the job, because I went through the paces just like everybody else did," Ridenour said. "But it actually ended up being a good thing for the airport, because now we don't have to tie everybody up training somebody new from the outside coming in."
The path to HGR
From his childhood days watching test flights of Fairchild A-10s swoop, in pairs, over his Maugansville home, Hagerstown Regional Airport has been a big part of life for Ridenour.
But it was firefighting, not aviation, that put him on the path to one day take the reins at the county-owned airport featuring the second-longest runway in the state.
Ridenour, 50, became a firefighter at Maugansville Goodwill Volunteer Fire Co. in 1976 at the age of 16, following in the footsteps of his grandparents, parents and older brother.
"It's a family thing for us," he said of the fire company. "I love it."
Ridenour became an officer two years after joining the company and went on to serve as chief for 20 years, through 2008. He currently is the fire company's president.
Ridenour graduated from North Hagerstown High School in 1978 and worked full time at Holsinger's Meat Market in Maugansville for several years before he was hired in 1984 as one of the county's first 911 operators.
Having helped acquire vehicles for the Maugansville fire company, Ridenour volunteered to fill out the paperwork for a grant for Hagerstown Regional Airport to buy its first small crash truck.
Since the 1984 closure of Fairchild Industries, which had its own aircraft rescue and firefighting crew, the airport had relied on nearby volunteer fire companies for firefighting support, Ridenour said.
But after the airport got its first crash truck, officials decided it should form its own fire department, and, in 1996, Ridenour was put at its helm.
Developing a fire station
Today, the airport has 13 firefighters including Ridenour, three airport maintenance employees cross-trained as firefighters, and nine part-time firefighters, but that wasn't always the case, Ridenour said.
"When I first came here, it was me," he said with a laugh.
The airport fire department assists with some calls off airport property, but its main function is to be prepared in the event of a crash or other emergency, Ridenour said.
Over the years, the department has helped planes land without nose gear, guided a pilot through an emergency landing in the snow, and responded to a situation in which a plane came in too fast and ran off the edge of the runway, stopping just short of Interstate 81, he said.
"Just, one day I was fire chief, the next afternoon I was airport director," he said during an interview at the airport Feb.17, two days after he was appointed by the Washington County Commissioners to replace former director Carolyn Motz, who retired Jan. 1.
Although his previous job description was to oversee aircraft rescue and firefighting, Ridenour said there is little in his new job in which he did not already have a hand, as his role at the airport had expanded to include administering grants, developing policies and writing budgets.
"I'm not saying that was a selling point for anybody to give me the job or award me the job, because I went through the paces just like everybody else did," Ridenour said. "But it actually ended up being a good thing for the airport, because now we don't have to tie everybody up training somebody new from the outside coming in."
The path to HGR
From his childhood days watching test flights of Fairchild A-10s swoop, in pairs, over his Maugansville home, Hagerstown Regional Airport has been a big part of life for Ridenour.
But it was firefighting, not aviation, that put him on the path to one day take the reins at the county-owned airport featuring the second-longest runway in the state.
Ridenour, 50, became a firefighter at Maugansville Goodwill Volunteer Fire Co. in 1976 at the age of 16, following in the footsteps of his grandparents, parents and older brother.
"It's a family thing for us," he said of the fire company. "I love it."
Ridenour became an officer two years after joining the company and went on to serve as chief for 20 years, through 2008. He currently is the fire company's president.
Ridenour graduated from North Hagerstown High School in 1978 and worked full time at Holsinger's Meat Market in Maugansville for several years before he was hired in 1984 as one of the county's first 911 operators.
Having helped acquire vehicles for the Maugansville fire company, Ridenour volunteered to fill out the paperwork for a grant for Hagerstown Regional Airport to buy its first small crash truck.
Since the 1984 closure of Fairchild Industries, which had its own aircraft rescue and firefighting crew, the airport had relied on nearby volunteer fire companies for firefighting support, Ridenour said.
But after the airport got its first crash truck, officials decided it should form its own fire department, and, in 1996, Ridenour was put at its helm.
Developing a fire station
Today, the airport has 13 firefighters including Ridenour, three airport maintenance employees cross-trained as firefighters, and nine part-time firefighters, but that wasn't always the case, Ridenour said.
"When I first came here, it was me," he said with a laugh.
The airport fire department assists with some calls off airport property, but its main function is to be prepared in the event of a crash or other emergency, Ridenour said.
Over the years, the department has helped planes land without nose gear, guided a pilot through an emergency landing in the snow, and responded to a situation in which a plane came in too fast and ran off the edge of the runway, stopping just short of Interstate 81, he said.
