Episode Transcript
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Hi, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
Very pleased to have today Suzanne Payton. She's the executive director of a place you're all familiar with, Clinton National Airport, and so much going on at the airport these days, I thought I'd use the next 30 minutes or so to kind of update you on that. So, Suzanne, your first visit with us on the Southern Fried blog. Welcome. Good to have you here.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Thank you. And I'm so glad you said everyone knows. I hope everyone knows. If not, maybe they will after today.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, maybe they will after we do this. But as someone who flies, I certainly know how much is going on.
But it's so much more than that and we'll get into that. But the airport is really its own community and it's such an important part of economic development and what we're doing here in central Arkansas in the economic development sector. But I wanted to introduce our listeners to you. To start with, you're the first Arkansan in more than 20 years to lead the Little Rock Airport.
Before you went there, you spent a large part of your career with Garver, which is the large Little Rock based engineering firm. So I guess I would start here. And that is, you know, I know that we've got a lot more than we used to, but we always need more female engineers. How did you get interested in engineering and how did you decide to go that route with your career?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Well, way back in the dark ages, when I was looking at what to do for a career, I was interested in historic preservation, actually, and I did an occupation paper and followed around Becky Witzel.
I went to go visit at wer.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: What a legend. And I'm into historic preservation, too, so very familiar with Becky's work.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: But at the time, in the economy, you couldn't get a job as an architect. And so I decided to pursue it from the engineering route and went to school. It was really funny to me that people would ask, are you going to drive a train? And I was like, well, not that kind of an engineer. So when I got to engineering school, I pursued civil engineering and structures really weren't that interesting to me. So I.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: And you were at school at Louisiana Tech.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: At Tech in Ruston.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: And so, you know, just pursued the general civil. And when I came to interview at Garver, I was hired by Brock Johnson and Ted Hannah and Ron Pierce a long time ago. And what they did was take you around to all the different businesses to water, wastewater, and to highway and to airports. And the guy who talk to me as about airports just was really good at identifying who might be a good airport engineer.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: So something I really hadn't studied in school, but I just grew a passion for I have really enjoyed. And so I was one of few females at the time. Usually every room I'd go into and
[00:03:37] Speaker A: that's what I was going to ask. I would think there weren't many females in that area then.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: I think when I started at garver, we had 50 engineers and there were five women.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Yep.
You know, maybe down to three at one point.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: But, you know, they're graduating now. 50% of women from engineering schools. And so now it's just that look at retention as you keep on through their careers. Can you retain people in the industry?
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, you were later promoted there at Garvin to aviation planning team leader. And Garver is such a big organization, I assume that means you did work across the country at airports.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: We did. I got to work on airports master planning projects at Austin, at Burbank, at Cleveland, at Abilene, Killeen, and then a lot of general aviation airports, too. So of the four greenfield airport projects that happened in Arkansas over the last 20, 25 years, I got to work on Delta Regional and Conway and Saline County. I say Saline county is my airport because the call letters are Suz.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Okay, there you go. There you go.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Planning for that one.
They're both really interesting to get to do to help communities get what they need out of their airport.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So great career there. I circled. I think I said Garvan a while ago, and that's what I get for reading my emails before I do this taping, because I had one from Garvin, Woodlands, Garden, Garver.
So a great career there, work across the country, and then you make a decision to go to the Little Rock airport.
What drove that decision to leave after a long career at Garver and go out to the airport?
[00:05:35] Speaker B: You know, it's really fulfilling to me to be able to help communities get what they need out of their airport. And, you know, I started becoming involved with the chamber and the leadership Greater Little Rock Program and started to really get interested in civic engagement. And so when I had the opportunity to then do what I do for my airport, that was just the perfect mesh of that civic engagement with what my skills and talents were in my career. So I love. I'm thrilled to be able to do that. I'm very proud that the commission had confidence in me to make me the Executive director. And we just got so many exciting things that are going on at the Little Rock Airport.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Oh, you do? That's an interesting connection. I've got to tell you, the speaking to leadership Greater Little Rock every year is one of the favorite things I do is, you know, they give me an hour to talk about the history of the city of Little Rock. And I love history so much. And of course, our airport here has such a great history.
And then you are promoted to executive director earlier this year. So a great congratulations on that. It's good to have a native Arkansas in that position.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Thank you. Thrilled to be doing it.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: All right, let's talk a little bit about what is going on. There's a lot since you became executive director already.
For starters, the curbside canopy outside the ticket lobby is. Is now finished, and we've at least got some glimpses of the terminal modernization project that's on the horizon for Clinton National Airport. So talk about, first of all, the canopy project, and then where we go from there.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Well, you know, in the grand screen, the grand scheme of things, the canopy project is relatively small, at least in
[00:07:30] Speaker A: cost, but everybody notices it.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: It has been a big impact. I mean, just the look of it is we've got such good compliments on it. The signage, the lighting, very classy, fits with what we've got going already.
But, you know, what you're not seeing are the enabling projects that are happening for our terminal redevelopment. So our central utility plant has always been a necessary enabling project, and we started on that two years ago, and we'll finish it up next year. That's a complete overhaul of our electrical and mechanical equipment at the airport, moving them out of the way for future terminal work. That was really.
We were able to do that when the Infrastructure and Jobs act allowed for vertical work at airports with the federal funding. Previously, we had just been limited to airfield work. So the flat work, the runways and the taxiways. So when that became available to us, that allowed us to kickstart our terminal redevelopment. So that's going on in the background, and then that sets up the next steps for some terminal work that we're doing. But in the meantime, we've been doing some passenger experience improvements. So we've got some new furniture coming where people sit while they're waiting. We've got.
We did the terrazzo flooring in the concourse. We're doing some lighting upgrades in the ticket lobby. So a lot of just little things that are small but really make a big difference and how the airport feels.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: First impressions really Are important.
And Clinton national is the first impression not only of Little Rock, but of Arkansas that so many first time visitors have to our state.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: That's right. And we think it's really important to create a sense of place for both the city and the state. I don't know if you've noticed our art program and the advances we've made in it in the last several years, but that terrazzo floor going to the security Checkpoint with over 50 different custom mixed colors.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Done by. Through a call to artist and by a muralist who had never done a floor before. Yeah. But just created. Tiffany Black was the artist. Just created an amazing thing. If you ever go look at it.
One of my favorite things to look at is just the shadows of it. There's a big bird, and then you could see in another piece of the terrazzo, the shadow of the bird as it's flying. And our latest piece of art, the cuts, I don't know if you've seen those. That are three different Arkansas scenes. And so we're just thrilled to be able to create that sense of place.
Just make the area beautiful and make it something that really speaks Little Rock in Arkansas.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And they feel it once they leave the building. And again, that first impression just sticks with them.
I can tell you I was sworn to secrecy in the course, Couldn't say anything at the time. But when the Bezos group came to visit that gave the $30 million for the downtown park one of the biggest gifts in the history of this city.
You know, we talked to them.
I had dinner with them, and we talked to them about what they liked. And they mentioned our airport.
Clean, accessible, very close to downtown.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: I mean, we just realize how transformational that is going to be for our city. And then how we just all layer on together what we do, how it contributes to economic development, how we overlap and partner with the other pieces of economic development in the area. And, you know, if we're all communicating and collaborating, I just think there's great things that can happen. We've got a really supportive, engaged, smart airport commission committed.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: You really do have a good commission
[00:11:26] Speaker B: committed to the area. So all of them.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: I'm just really excited about, you know, what they're going to be able to do. Moving the airport forward.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Gotcha. Before I get too deep in the economic development part, I wanted to cover a few more things. Let's go back to the terminal modernization before all is said and done.
How much do you plan on spending? How big a project is that?
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Well, the original Terminal redevelopment program was three phases. So the first phase was completed in 201313 as the ticket lobby. The second phase would be the arrivals hall, and it addresses the security checkpoint. The queue is pretty tight.
The bag claim, which as aircraft sizes have increased, our baggage claim belts are not really big enough. And then the area is not big enough. So the arrivals hall. So the bag claim and then straightening out that curb. We've got a lot of curb frontage, but it's just not. It doesn't work very well the way that it is. Yeah. So the arrivals hall takes care of that, and that's about a $350 million project.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: And then the final phase of the terminal redevelopment program would be the expansion of the concourse.
So just making that. You know, I mentioned that the aircraft sizes have increased over the last 20 years. You notice it if you're sitting in a hold room before they load a flight.
It's just tight.
It's spilling out into the hallway.
So getting those. Everything sized correctly for the next 30 years will be pretty important. So we don't have any costs on that yet, but, you know, construction costs,
[00:13:04] Speaker A: how you're paying for it, bonds, grants, airport revenue. All of the above.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Yes, all of the above. We have done a very good job. We haven't had any debt since 2015 and have been profitable every year. So we have been making deposits into a terminal sinking fund, and we've got a good amount of cash, you know, saved up for that. Of course, construction costs go up more than you can save every year. So at some point, we're going to come to the point where it's time to just move and issue some debt, pursue some additional grant funding, and then use our cash to get it going. We were able to fund the whole $110 million central utility plant without issuing any debt with just our cash and some really good grant opportunities that we secured.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Gotcha. On certain days, I know parking can be at a premium. What is the airport doing to address the parking situation?
[00:14:01] Speaker B: My goodness. This summer was something else.
Even past our. Our top 10 days of busyness are usually in June, but even in July and August and even after school started, one day the parking deck was closed.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Oh, it just kept going.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it just kept going. People are lengthening their trips, and so we have known for a while and have been working on additional parking, you know, as we will lose some parking as we do some construction too. So we're currently working on 2,200 spaces on the east. The east side of Airport Road.
That'll Alleviate, you know, allow us to free up some space where we can do our construction. We'll have some premium spots that are covered and we'll have some economy spots so we can take care of everybody and what they're wanting to do and where they're wanting to park. So that should be finished next summer.
If we can push them to get it done in time for busy season, we will. But next summer for sure.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Good to know. Good to know. Let's talk about airlines.
How do they decide which markets to serve, which routes to serve? I know that's its own science and I don't really understand it, so. So give me a primer on that.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Well, I'm not sure I do either. Sometimes I feel like it's like the wizard of Oz and the little man
[00:15:19] Speaker A: behind the curtain is they just come and tell you we're doing this.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: They just come and tell you. But they each, you know, they're for profit businesses. And of the four big carriers, they each have different strategies. And so, you know, they're looking to where can they make the most money with the equipment or the aircraft that they have.
So, of course, flying a full aircraft a distance that's not too far because gas is their other big cost, that's going to be profitable for them. Lucky for us, we're very well located in the middle of the country.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So we're right in the middle.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah, we're a good haul route. We're also a good place for them to stage aircraft overnight. That's worked really in our favor.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: I was going to say we've had that for years. And it gets us a lot of late night flights coming in.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: That's right. And early morning going out.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Early morning.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So as important to adding new flights is to maintain the routes that we have and to keep those full. And so we communicate all the time with the airlines about what's happening in Little Rock, what things might affect their route planning, and then how can we encourage them to maybe invest in additional routes that would be the advantage to them. And that's what we try to do. Figure out.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: I was going to say what destinations are on your wish list right now that we don't have direct flights to.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Well, you know, we just did a survey, a stakeholder survey. And so we got a lot of input from our passengers. We are a primarily leisure market, about 70% leisure. So people are mostly going on vacations, not on business trips. And we had requests for a lot of things like New Orleans and the beach and Los Angeles. And you know, there's a balance between which of those support economic development initiatives, which of those are pure leisure and then what we think the airlines would do. You know, people ask for Nashville for years and I never thought that would happen. I mean, why would they put. It's a six hour drive as close as it is.
But that worked out to be within Southwest strategy to connect to the East Coast. And so, you know, we will continue to take what people request, what we think the airlines may be interested in and just make sure we're always in constant communication with them so when the time is right, we can be there, be ready for them to put new routes into our market.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Gotcha. Let's, let's expand it out now to the, to the economic development. I mean central Arkansas, we've got, you know, we've got some of the best economic developers out there.
People like Jay Chesser, Brian Day over at the port of Little Rock.
I've written a lot about the port. Now we all know there's 11,000 people working there.
You're right across the interstate, 430 and basically as big as Arkansas has been now for many years in the aviation industry. You're also kind of your own industrial park too on your grounds that people need to realize.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: I am so excited about.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Thousands of people work about where we
[00:18:25] Speaker B: are in relation to downtown East Little Rock and how that's redeveloping and the opportunities there. The port on the other side of us and what's going on there. And then we've got 2,000 acres just as part of our property. So it's very important to us to make sure that we're in constant communication with the local stakeholders on how do we use our property to best support what's going on in economic development. You know, there are so many businesses operating on the airfield. Over 3,000 people work at the airport, but I only employ 180.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: So you know, in addition to the airline employees, the rental car employees, the food and beverage concession employees, then you start looking outside of the terminal area. You've got Envoy, you have got. They've recently expanded that into a center of excellence. So double their space. You've got Central Flying Service, which is the Amp Shop. You've got Dassault doing the completions for the Falcons. We've got two FBOs, Atlantic and Signature, both the top two in the nation. So there's just so much activity going on at the airport all the time. It's really exciting. So however that we can use what we have there to fit into the overall economic strategy, I think is going to be important.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah, Dassault has been doing major expansions in recent years.
It's just amazing how that continues to grow. I've got to tell you, one of the favorite columns I've done in recent years is a. A couple of years ago, before Warren Stevens was our ambassador to the United Kingdom, he called me up and he said we were digging through some stuff and found some old history that might make you a good column. So I'm always looking for that. So I rushed down there and it was how Jack Stevens had bought this old plane and converted it.
He and Mr. Witt were mad because it was always breaking down and they were having to go out of state for maintenance.
So they started what led to Desault Falcon and over a thousand jobs. Now, it really was a fascinating story of how you can start small and grow into something very, very big.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: That's right. And I just think we've got so many smart, just visionary folks around our area that are looking at those kinds of opportunities. And I feel like me being the director of the airport, I'm kind of running around trying to help support and how can we be in position to best when they're ready, you know, have the resources they need to be able to be successful.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah, but you take u right there, you take the port again on the other side of 4:30, I mean, and it's pretty amazing quarter when you think about it, the way that air transportation, water Transportation with the McClellan Kerr Arkansas river navigation system comes together.
Ground transportation with 30, now 27 and 40 all coming into Little Rock, three interstate highways connected, you take that and then the rail that we've got here.
In a day when just on time, delivery is so important, logistics are so important. Little Rock's kind of in a sweet spot, isn't it?
[00:21:46] Speaker B: We're so well positioned and I think just on the brink.
Yeah, you know, I do.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: I do too. I do too. Now I want to get back though, because in addition to writing about economic development, I write about culture too. You were talking about the art in the terminal, but I know you've done things like the food, music from time to time, other things to give that whole experience a real Arkansas feel when people are there at the airport.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Well, you know, I'm an engineer and we're not known for being very artistic or very exciting, but we do have such a great team and just our staff there who's got such a heart for customer service and passenger experience.
You know, they bring some of these great ideas of being able. How do we bring in the community into the airport? How do we participate? How do we have that? And. And we just had citizens and staff contribute to that. And, you know, I love art and artists because I don't understand them. So I love to just. It has been so much fun to watch that whole process happen. And what I think was we were going to. We were going out for and trying to procure. We ended up with something totally different. And it's great.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: You know, so that's a really fun part of the job. Besides just building brick and mortar. How do you create a place?
[00:23:13] Speaker A: You remind me. You say you don't understand them. I always tell people here a newspaper culture.
Those of us who are writers, of course, are very different than the business end of the operation. We'd be bankrupt in a week if you let those of us who were writers run the business.
And then the photographers, they're the real artists and the graphic artists, and they're out there different from us. So it's kind of like you said at the airport, you've got all these different worlds coming together there.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Team.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So on a normal day, if you're just walking around the terminal, what's your favorite part? What's your. What's your favorite thing to do?
[00:23:47] Speaker B: You know what? I can't get all the way down the concourse without seeing folks that I know. And that's what I've always loved about Little Rock and being part of the community. Anyway, when we. I was born in Conway. We moved to Little Rock when I was 3, and my dad said as soon as the moving truck moved away, I grabbed him and said, let's go make some friends. I made him let me knock on every door and say, do you have any kids? And so, you know, I love to know people and to get to know people and so to be able to contribute to what people are getting to do either with their business or their leisure travel, it's so much fun. And then, you know, just watching people grow and people change around positions and move up from working from one of our tenants to working to the airport to move into an airline, it just. There's something exciting happening all the time. And then once you get to go out on the airfield and see some of those businesses and the FBOs, I mean, aviation is just a really fun community. There's so many things going on. Airplanes are exciting. Flight is exciting. It's just a really great group of folks.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. I Think you've really hit on something seeing people. You know, the great thing about a small state, I can tell you, a few years ago, I was standing in your security line and directly in front of me, I mean, directly in front of me was Ted Danson, who lives part time in Little Rock, as people know. And then directly behind me was former governor Jim Guy Tucker. And this is great. That's what I love about Arkansas. We had this great conversation while we're waiting to go through the security line.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: I know we just went to go visit some friends in Colorado and I heard someone talking to our friend and I kind of heard where they said they were from and I went over and asked them and I said, what is your name? And I said you were my mom's friend growing up. So I got to talk to Bliss Hickey from Marianna.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Wow. In Colorado and just make that connection.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: So it's great.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: You'll meet somebody from Arkansas everywhere.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: That is great.
I know it doesn't feel like it now, but winter will be coming at some point.
Talk about how the airport, because it's such a crucial connection, prepares for winter storms and ice or, you know, severe weather, tornadoes alert, so forth. I know, again, that's a whole world unto itself.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Well, you know, the forecast all this week and next is all in the 90s.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: But we'll be having our snow planning meeting.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Snow and ice planting meeting. That is a big production. You know, we do a lot to make sure that we pre treat that we watch the weather that we know. You know, our job is to not close the airport. And that is what we try to do. So from our operations department to our facilities maintenance department, they are always looking at what's going to come down, when's it going to come down, how long is it going to come down and how do we get it off the Runway? Yeah. And so we use a combination of things between chemicals to brooms to blowers, everything. And they work, you know, around the clock while it's coming down to keep it off. And if you can get ahead of it and keep it off the pavement and not let it build up, that's usually your biggest way to succeed. And, and make sure that you don't have to tell the airlines we don't have a surface for you.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Understood.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: So, you know, we're in the business for them to be in business. And so we, we don't close the airport.
They decide whether they fly, you know, of course too, in thunderstorms and tornadoes, you've got folks working out on the ramps. And all the airlines have rules and safety systems where they can't let their staff be out there.
And so, you know, they'll put a ground stop or, you know, just hold planes or wait until it's safe. So safety is always the priority. And we have a great team that does a great job making sure we've got surfaces that are safe.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: People listening this podcast, if they want to keep up with what's going on, if they fly a lot or they're just interested in the terminal modernization plans, things like that.
What's their best thing? Your website.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: The website, if you really want to look through, there's some really cool renderings on there right now. There are about the terminal, and those are just at the schematic design phase. So there's a lot of things that can change. But ClintonAirport.com is our website and then our Instagram and our Facebook page. Especially when we start to have those snow and ice events, even if you're not traveling, it's really interesting to watch what they're doing out there. And we did some really good content this last year about some of those operations. So I would love for people to start to take a look at all the exciting things that are coming up.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Gotcha. If you had one message for Arkansans about the future of Clinton National Airport, what would that be?
[00:28:46] Speaker B: This is an exciting time. You know, we are looking at the next 30 years and what the community needs. We've got a great staff doing that. We've got a great engaged airport commission doing that. They really care about the community. And I'm just very hopeful and excited about the plans and the vision they have for how they continue to benefit Little Rock and Arkansas in every way.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Suzanne, thank you. Really appreciate you being with us today. We'll get you so much going on. We'll get you back before too long.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: All right. Suzanne Payton is the executive director of Clinton National Airport. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
