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Twin Falls Native Named Executive Director of Salt Lake City International Airport

Posted on: Wednesday, 10 May 2006, 12:07 CDT

By Bob Kirkpatrick, The Times-News, Twin Falls, Idaho,

May 10--TWIN FALLS -- Twin Falls native Roy Williams was named executive director of the Salt Lake City International Airport and is expected to assume his new position May 30.

He'll face the challenges of deciding whether the Salt Lake airport needs a new passenger terminal and negotiating with airlines for nonstop service to Europe.

The 51-year-old certainly has met challenges before.

Since 2001, Williams has been director of aviation at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. He was instrumental in overseeing reconstruction of the airport that suffered nearly $55 million in damages caused by Hurricane Katrina.

"On Aug. 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina passed over New Orleans, the airport lost airfield lighting, navigational aids, electrical power, water and most telephone services," Williams said, answering questions by e-mail. "But despite these challenges, airport staff, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Safety Administration cooperated to clear the runways and establish interim security procedures to reopen the airport under visual flight rules."

And they did it quickly. Williams said these efforts allowed the first relief plane to land at the New Orleans airport Aug. 30.

Salt Lake City leaders cited Williams' efforts in New Orleans in their selection of Williams for the $185,000-a-year job.

As director of aviation of Dayton International Airport in Ohio from 1991 to 1998, Williams managed two city-owned airports while supervising a 140-employee department with an annual operating budget of more than $30 million. One of the biggest challenges he faced was to update the airport's 1970 master plan, transforming the facility into a primary hub for Emery Worldwide Cargo.

"The existing plan wasn't focused on cargo, which was a growing issue here in the early '90s," Williams said. "The new master plan incorporated Emery's expansion and location on the north side of the airfield, proposing major runway and taxi changes to allow aircraft in and out more quickly."

After jobs elsewhere in the country, Williams is happy to be back.

"I'm from the West and my wife and I have had a long-term goal of getting back here at some point in our careers," Williams said.

Born in Twin Falls

Williams was born in Twin Falls in 1955 and lived in the city until 1961, when his dad, Robert Williams, took a job as a contracting officer with the Boise National Forest Department. His grandfather Art Williams worked at the Feed and Ice store in Twin Falls, and his grandmother Faye Williams was assistant treasurer for Twin Falls County until the mid '60s.

Growing up in the agricultural region of southern Idaho, Williams decided not to walk in the footsteps of the many farmers and dairymen who had gone before him.

"My parents and grandparents had been mostly white-collar workers, so even though I grew up with the high desert and agriculture of southern Idaho, I was very familiar with the office environment," Williams said. "My parents and high school counselor encouraged me to pursue the most education possible."

Williams said he met two attorneys while attending Boise High School who were also influential in his decision to turn down a shovel and plow for a backpack full of books and a college education.

From 1995 to 1997, Williams studied economics at Harvard University. In 1981 he enrolled at Georgetown University. It was there he first became interested in the aviation industry.

"While attending law school in the late '70s and early '80s I worked for the FAA," Williams said. "It was the dawning of the deregulation of the airline industry, and I got to work on some very interesting issues."

Times-News business writer Bob Kirkpatrick can be reached at 735-3376 or bkirkpatrick@magicvalley.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Times-News, Twin Falls, Idaho,

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Source: The Times-News

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