Airport Manager's Corner
I would like to announce four personnel changes at the airport.
After 25 years of public service with the City of Hayward, as well as positions at other municipalities, Public Works Director Morad Fakhrai announced his retirement in late 2017. Morad is a registered professional engineer and his experience with road construction and other types of capital projects made him a natural to oversee the airport and other divisions of Public Works. Morad has said he’s interested in taking a discovery flight in the near future, and if all goes well, he may become a regular fixture at the airport.
As the result of Morad’s departure, City Manager Kelly McAdoo announced the appointment of Alex Ameri as Interim Public Works Director. Alex has master’s degrees in civil engineering and mechanical engineering and he is a registered professional engineer in California. After working in the private sector, he accepted a position with the City of Santa Barbara in the land development division of the Public Works Department. He moved to the Bay Area in 1989 and joined the City of Hayward’s Planning Department as the Development Services Engineer. Alex was selected as the Deputy Director of Public Works for Utilities in 1993 and was appointed as the Director of the newly established Utilities & Environmental Services Department in 2010. Airport staff looks forward to working with Alex.
Pam Svrdlin is our newly-appointed airport operations supervisor and takes over from David Decoteau. She comes to us as the former airport operations supervisor in Santa Clara County. Pam is a graduate of San Jose State University, a private pilot, and she’s currently the co-president of the Women in Aviation Bay Area Chapter. Pam supervises the airport maintenance staff and the airport operations specialist, and she is already busy with projects, including completion of the recent annual inspection of City-owned hangars. We’re very pleased to have Pam onboard.
Todd Strojny is the new airport business supervisor, a position that was recently approved by City Council. Informally dubbed the “king of paperwork,” Todd handles everything from grant applications to report preparation, and from supervision of the office staff to preparation of our annual operating and CIP budgets. Todd has a long history of public service at municipalities throughout California, and he most recently worked with the Hayward Fire Department. He has already begun to make beneficial changes to our business practices and provide an even better customer experience, and we’re pleased to have Todd on the airport team.
We are currently recruiting for the airport operations specialist position and hope to have a new person onboard soon. We’ll have an announcement in the next edition of the newsletter.
