President John Starnes called the meeting to order promptly at 12:27, and welcomed everyone to the club meeting which was held at the Natrona County International Airport. He also welcomed back Jim Allison from being a snowbird.

 

Greg Dixson and Caryn Luberto were the greeters today, and Caryn introduced the members who brought guests:

First, visiting Rotarians Chad Cundy and Wayne Heili (Casper Five Trails Rotary Club);

Our exchange student Elise Verbooman was also with us today;

 

Dennis Lower cracked us up with a couple of good jokes, and then Gary Pehrson had us all stand and led us in singing “Home on the Range”.

 

Joe MacGuire received his Pin for sponsoring a new member;

 

President John Starnes let us know that Ron Salveson sent him an email letting us know that he resigned from the club, retired from work and headed to Florida the next day to stay for a while.

 

Liz Becher nominated Tom and Lynn Lockhart, Darren Divine, Dan Fulton and Hal Hutchinson for attending the Rotaract fundraiser last week.

Bill DeGraeve nominated Mike McIntosh and President John Starnes for agreeing to be on the nominating committee for nominating new board members.

Glenn Januska nominated Dale Bohren for all of his work with the marketing of the airport and its services and he presented him with a plaque from the airport board.

 

Donovan McComb, sponsored by Dick Jay; and Jeff Johnson sponsored by Peaches Lynch were inducted into the club today, welcome aboard!

 

Donovan McComb introduced himself to us today; he is transferring down from Miles City MT Rotary club. Donovan is married with four children, his wife is a ballet instructor and his children attend KWHS, Centennial JH and Verda James grade school. He was born and raised in South Africa and at the age of 15 moved to Carmel CA when his mom remarried. They then moved to Colorado Springs a year and a half later where he graduated from HS and then went to UW on a football scholarship where he met his wife during his graduate studies. They married and moved to Denver and did not enjoy Denver so they moved back to Wyoming when he went to work for Community First National Bank in Sheridan as a mortgage banker. He ended up going to work for First Interstate Bank after Community First was bought out and ended up in Miles City MT where he joined Rotary and eventually served as President of the club. He is now in Casper with First Interstate Bank and is really enjoying his time here in Casper.

 

 

PE Jim Ruble introduced our speaker, fellow Rotarian Glenn Januska director of the Natrona County International Airport. Glenn started by thanking all of the Rotarians who have served on the airport board of directors and those who are still serving. The board of directors has spent a lot of time preparing the plan for the next twenty years at the airport and what the airport will need and look like in the next twenty years so this is what he presented us today. He had a great slide show presentation showing all of the details of what is going on today and what the future will look like. The FAA requires this process when they are seeking grants to pay for the changes and improvements to show a basis for the money they are requesting. They start by looking at the passengers currently and where they feel the trends will lead them in the next twenty years. He said that they also are actually an International airport with a customs officer and have over 500 international flights a year coming in from all over the world. As flights and passengers increase there will be capital improvements that will need built like parking, rental car area with parking, a new control tower and more gates. They also want to protect the historical district from when the airport was a WWII training facility as there are several buildings left over from that era. They have to work up forecasts of where they think the passenger levels will grow to as well as commercial air traffic and landings and taking off of flights. They then look at the design aircrafts and sizes so that they can base the landing strips and facilities off of the type of aircrafts that will be flying in and out. They also must look at the scheduling of flights to determine the size and types of facilities that they will need at any given time of the day and especially for peak times when there are more flights arriving and leaving close to the same time. Currently they have no deficiencies but as flights increase the facilities will need to grow and change. They plan on moving the gate holding area back upstairs in order to have more space for waiting passengers and will add on to the building with more gates. They are looking to expand the baggage claim area as well as the rental car area and add in a customs area to increase international flights. He showed us some of the artists renderings of what the terminal building will look like as it grows and expands; very nice looking plans. He then showed us the plans for more hanger facilities. They have already started building a new hanger for a new company moving into town. They are looking at building some hangers where some of the current historic buildings are and plan on moving those old barracks closer in with the others so that they are all in one area. He showed us the plans for improving the parking areas for rental cars as well as workers and passengers. They have three different choices for where to put the new control tower and will choose which one for sure when they get a little closer to building it. They have to be careful of the impact the building will have on the environment as well as the historical area of the airport to make sure and preserve those things so it is a very in depth process and they have different choices to make on how to do that. They want to make the historical area a focus for those people who travel around to visit WWII historic sites as well as others like the schools for history classes etc. He said that we have one of the best preserved sites from that era. They want to incorporate the existing museum along with all of the historic buildings to make an area that will be a great attraction for many people to visit. Currently he said that we have passengers coming from about every county in the state and the highest number outside of Natrona County come from Fremont County. He was asked about the Allegiant flights to AZ and told us that they are still talking to Allegiant about starting those back up but there are a lot of things that go into these negotiations and a lot of challenges for Allegiant because of their business plan and where they make their money, which is from the packages that they sell and not just the airfare. The airport will continue to visit with Allegiant to try and come to an agreement to offer more cities. Great presentation and what a great plan to expand and improve on our airport facilities. They also offered a tour of the airport before the meeting and also after the meeting.

 

President John Starnes adjourned the meeting at 1:27 p.m. reminding us that we are meeting at the Petroleum Club next week and our speaker will be from the Wyoming Dinosaur Museum from Thermopolis.