One Finalist Drops Out, One Added in Search for LWS Airport Manager
One of the four finalists to become the manager of the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport has dropped out of the running to take another job, but the airport authority board is bringing in another candidate to replace him.
Board member Gary Peters said finalist Matthew Maass accepted an offer from an engineering firm Monday and removed himself from the running for the Lewiston job. Maass is the deputy director/state airports manager with the Oregon Department of Aviation in Salem.
He will be replaced on the slate of finalists by Mark H. Mellinger, the former director of the Texarkana Regional Airport Authority in Texarkana, Ark. He held that post from 2015 to October 2019, according to his resume.
“(The search committee was) on the fence on whether to bring four or five (finalists), and (Mellinger) was close to being on the list,” Peters said.
The other candidates are Joseph W. Goetz, an airport operations manager at the Crater Lake Klamath Regional Airport in Oregon; Michael Isaacs, an airport manager in Pierre, S.D.; and Jeffrey Smith, of Portland, Ore., who most recently worked at the airport consulting firm of Mead & Hunt.
The airport authority advertised an annual salary of $125,000 a year plus benefits for the position. The candidates, except for Mellinger, will be in Lewiston today for tours of the community. Formal interviews will be conducted Friday. Mellinger had an earlier conflict with that schedule, and will be interviewed via videoconference, Peters said.
The committee expects to make a selection and inform the candidate of its decision after the Friday interviews. Committee membership includes Peters; Dick Flerchinger, owner of D&S Electrical Contractors; Jody Servatius, president and CEO of Twin River Bank; Gale Wilson, president of Hillcrest Aircraft Co.; and Rich Rogers, an owner of Rogers Motors.
The authority board will make the final appointment at its Monday meeting, and the new manager is expected to begin next month.
Mills may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2266.
———
©2020 the Lewiston Tribune (Lewiston, Idaho)
Visit the Lewiston Tribune (Lewiston, Idaho) at www.lmtribune.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
