Collier County's airport manager shares ideas on improving 3 airports. Who is he?

Meet Bryant Garrett . He's in charge of Collier County government's three public airports : Marco Island Executive Airport, Immokalee Regional Airport and Everglades Airpark. Together, the airports are estimated to have an annual economic impact of more than $300 million.He's new to Collier County but not to Florida, and certainly not to airplanes.

Garrett, who turns 65 in August, has spent his adult life at airports. Whether he was getting his pilot's license in 1983 or working as a police officer at airports in Utah and Sanford, Florida., Garrett said he always wanted to work in aviation.

"I got my pilot's license and I wanted to get a job in aviation," he "said. "I actually wanted to hopefully join the military, but I had terrible eyesight. And they didn't have LASIK back then. And so, I went down the road of things I could do with crappy eyesight."

Garrett started his career at airports as a uniformed police office

He started with a degree in air operations management. But when looking for his first job, there was an entry-level operations officer position in Salt Lake City.

"So, you are a uniformed police officer," he said. "I carried a gun, but you also did tons of aviation duties, so I had to do the runway inspections, the fuel farm inspections and all that, but I was also the enforcement of rules and regulations."

Garrett worked for nearly 12 years at Salt Lake City's airport. After that, he worked in Sanford for 14 years, as head of police and security, creating the airport's police department. After that, he was airport manager in Redding, California and had the same title for five years back in Ogden, Utah, where he had earned his pilot's license. He left there for Collier County.

"We had a very cold winter, and we had a super snowy winter last year, so I was kind of done with it," Garrett said of Utah. "My wife is a native Floridian. She's very happy to be back."

Getting settled in Southwest Florida

Although still a bit sparse, Garrett's office inside Marco Island Executive Airport has two standouts – a photo of a space shuttle taking off and a display of colorful running medals.

Of his love of space exploration, Garrett said, "that's the ultimate aviation." His wife, Julee, worked in the launch room of NASA's space shuttle program at Kennedy Space Center for 28 years until she retired in 2012, just after the last launch in 2011.

Garrett's running medals are proud moments of half marathons and from the two marathons he ran – both of them in Florida.

He and Julee are renting a condo in Naples with a 14-month lease while they look for a home to purchase. And while the area is new to them, Garrett said, "my impressions of the area, the airports, and the people are nothing short of amazing."

What's happening in aviation in Southwest Florida?

With four public airports in Collier County, there's a lot going on.

Naples Airport , run by Naples Airport Authority on property leased from the City of Naples, is nearing completion of an exploratory study about the possibility of moving the airport from its east Naples location to somewhere in east Collier County. It also is working with Hughes Aerospace to update its flight patterns. Some of these changes may affect Marco Island Executive Airport and how planes come and go.

And recently, Naples Airport Board of Commissioners sent a letter to Collier County saying it would like to talk about taking over management of Collier County government's three airports.

At Immokalee Regional Airport, which is just under 1,400 acres, Collier County recently solicited proposals for someone to manage and develop the 500 acres that remain undeveloped at the airport. Naples Airport officials say they aren't interested in developing the land and sent the management proposal instead.

Garrett said demand is high for Immokalee and Marco airport space.

"I need hangars in Immokalee. What I have in Immokalee is full. People want tie downs. All of my tie downs are allocated," he said. "When it comes down to high season, people want to come stay for weeks. We don't have anywhere to put them. We need more pavement."

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) estimates that the Immokalee airport has a total local economic impact of $50.3 million annually.

At Marco Executive Airport , there's no more pavement, nowhere to expand. A 12,000-square-foot hangar is being built right now, making for 30 to 40 hangars total on the 140-acre site surrounded protect land and water.

"That hill of dirt will become probably the last hangar on this field until you tear down something to build something new," Garrett said.

"This airport has great difficulty physically expanding," he said. "And that's just because it's surrounded on all four sides by threatened and endangered flora and fauna."

Marco Island has one runway. By comparison, Naples Airport has two runways, so does Immokalee.

FDOT estimates that the Marco Island Executive Airport has a local total annual economic impact of $258 million.

"The opportunities here for adding hangars to bring in more aircraft is limited, so the focus needs to be on processing more aircraft through here so that we can get more people visiting," Garrett said.

One thing he sees missing at Marco airport is a restaurant, where locals and visitors can sit and eat and watch the planes come and go. It's probably something that should have been considered, if it was ever going to be, when designing and building the current terminal , which opened in the spring of 2021.

Everglades Airpark , with one runway, is located in Everglades City and covers 29 acres. FDOT estimates the annual Economic Impact of the Everglades airport to be $2.1 million. The airpark is situated immediately southwest of the Big Cypress National Preserve and is surrounded on three sides by the waters of Everglades National Park. When it's not tourist and snowbird season, the airpark sits mostly empty.

There are no commercial flights at any of the airports in Collier County.

Accounting, public administration, air operations and mortgages?

Garrett's experience and education seem well suited to the area.

He has a master's degree in accounting from the University of Central Florida ; a master's degree in public administration from Brigham Young University ; and a bachelor's degree in air operations management from Westminster University

Garrett also spent some time as a mortgage loan officer – from September 1992 to September 1999 – while working for the Salt Lake City Airport Authority. That should give him something in common with the nearly 8,000 real estate agents in Collier County .

At the end of the day, Garrett said, "I love working in airports."

More: Naples Airport Authority to talk with Collier County about managing county airports

More: Want to move an airport? Make changes? Better talk to the feds. Local control is limited

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Collier County's airport manager shares ideas on improving 3 airports. Who is he?