We enjoyed a slow leisurely morning. I cooked breakfast as usual on Sunday morning. Sunday morning was the one day a week I cooked a big breakfast and we could enjoy each other’s company without a rush to be somewhere else.

The hired help were running everything and unless there was a problem above their pay grade, they did not bother us. The gym, the tanning booths, and the climbing wall were still busy as ever and the aviation division was growing steadily thanks to contracts from the government agencies. The college security groups were designed to be self managed.

Even so, there seemed to plenty to do on the weekends any more. Yesterday I was in Frost Borough in the morning and then at Morton field in the afternoon and still ended up in the office. Today it was back to Morton for an important meeting.

An emergency response plan was required by the FAA, the county and DHS. Without an approved one signed by the county and the FAA, insurance would be a problem even though we had met all their other requirements.

After the breakfast we had an open discussion about the Rochester proposal and the training complication that it was going to create. It was just the six of us; Marcy, Jenny, Ching Lee, Lorrie, Vicky and me.

We beat the topic to death for an hour, coming up with a ‘piece here and there’ type of solution. The final pieces would come together after I made a phone call to Eric on Monday.

I wondered how we were going to throw 15 people into heavy training on the 15th and still keep the agency’s involvement secret from the Rochester police officers. Only time would tell.

At noon we made our way to Morton Field for the next round of meetings. Lorrie had split up the duties of her staff. Both administrators and clerks had new assignments and duties. All of them would have new employees to train – some of them as soon as Monday.

Musical chair cross-training among Marcy’s, Ching Lee’s, Vicky’s and Lorrie’s clerks was common place. Nobody seemed to mind or complain. The only people that did not get moved around were the time keepers and Marcy’s auditors. They had special access to records that we felt should be kept among a few very trusted souls.

Lorrie’s aviation division was going to keep someone at the temporary office at Morton Field seven days a week, 16 hours a day and the same when the terminal building was opened.

The Florida vacation rental houses would be in full swing by Thanksgiving, including all the new ones Marcy had bought and those contracted. The new ad program for them had been hitting the papers and TV spots.

The economy for the middle class must be improving or they had pent up vacation fever. Many were obligated already and more rental cars were headed to the Naples site to handle the additional needs.

I learned later that the agency was planning on having an unknown number of people there 24×7 for research, Doppler and tower operation.

We had contacted Robert Bradbury of East Coast early in the construction phase and we had a camera surveillance system and card system installed in the terminal, our hanger, the maintenance building and fuel farm. So now it was just a matter of plug and play with the components and some computer programming.

With the heavy construction all but done, the coarse very thick base coat of blacktop on the access road, the terminal and both hangar parking lots had been put down last week. With November weather about to turn bad at any time, the whole place could be a mud pie in a day with all the traffic. The final coat had to be put down by Thanksgiving.

After that all the local blacktop plants closed from then until the end of January at the earliest, depending on the weather. There was one plant in southern Maryland that was open for emergency road repairs and potholes. Even then, to truck enough to do 2 miles of two lane road and three large parking lots was out of the question, plus it would lose too much heat – according to Tony – in the travel.

The new access gate that closed the road had been activated. It operated with any JBG ID card and had a key pad that the agency could use. Plus, a call phone was by the key pad to the temporary office and terminal as well as the agency hangar.

The intent was that when in-coming and out-going flights were done for the day, the gate could be closed. Anyone that needed to have access would have a number or card – a request by the agency to limit access.

Interestingly enough Eric did not want me to program the agency ID numbers into the system so their cards would work. It would have been easy to do.

When he said “no” I responded, “So you don’t trust us then. I am insulted,” I teased.

He immediately said, “You know it is not that. I trust my life in your hands more than I do any of my bosses. I worry about them playing politics with it first. With you there are no politics first, just send in the cleanup crew to take out the bodies that were in the way?”

I had called the donut shop to deliver a dozen boxes of donuts and six of those gallon boxes of their famous coffee. We were having a meeting with firefighters and county officials I imagined that they IV’d coffee so they could have both hands free for donuts- especially on the weekends.

The donuts, the county commissioners, the fire chiefs and their officers and the emergency management people all arrived at the same time.

Lorrie’s clerk had been at the temporary office supervising the office supply people. They were loading up the truck to leave. They had finished for the day as we arrived.

As we walked into the room there had been a remarkable improvement since I was in there yesterday. A receptionist area with a counter had been set up by the entrance door. There were a dozen cubicles set up for other employees to use.

On the wall were several large flat screens, one of them was showing MAAR rentals and was connected to the MAAR computer on the counter. The cars were the last items to make the trip from Island Airport to Morton.

The other flat screen was for the JBG flight schedule with arrivals and departures for today. I noticed right away there were two flight numbers for 1400 hrs arrival from Tucson Az. Another flat screen had the flights for tomorrow.

There were several speakers mounted high in the corner. One had our company aircraft label on it. We had a base frequency that all of our planes could use to contact the office if needed. The other speakers were for the tower and ground control frequencies.

Lorrie, Marcie, Ching Lee and Vicky took a cubicle and began checking out the computer systems, leaving Jenny and me to mingle with the guests.

Tony had the construction blueprint of the airport spread out on two of those folding 3 by 8 tables that were pushed together. The blueprint was a new one with the latest details and no hand written notes all over it. There were also several blueprints rolled up in tubes on a table.

The first persons to approach me were commissioners Duke Justice and Clarence Hallworthy. They had a much more pleasant demeanor than the last time I had seen them together.

“I hear your security group is close to becoming a police force in Rochester,” Duke said.

“Yes, we are close. Just a few more legal hurdles to cross,” I replied then asked, “How did you find out about that?”

“The city officials called and wanted to know what kind of organization JBG was to deal with. The only thing I could tell them was that you ran a tight ship, were true to your word and had some of the best people in the county working in your business,” Duke said.

“Thank you for the support and the good words,” I replied. Tony rapped on the table, “Five minutes to start,” he said.
Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.