Author: By BRIAN MCGRORY, Globe Staff Date: 11/21/2000 Page: B1 Section: Metro/Region
BRIAN MCGRORY
LAST WE CAST A LONG GLANCE AT GINNY BUCKINGHAM, SHE WAS
BEING DESCRIBED BY THE DEAN OF THE STATE'S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION AS A
``GIRL,'' DISMISSED BY A FORMER GOVERNOR FOR HER LACK OF STATURE, AND DERIDED BY
ANYONE WITH A PEN OR A MICROPHONE FOR HER REMARKABLE - ALMOST SINGULAR - LACK OF
AVIATION EXPERIENCE.
She took over the job as executive director of the
multibillion-dollar fraternity house known as Massport in September 1999,
immediately slashed its legendary entertainment budget, received the requisite
Globe Living section story on the harried life of a political mom, then
vanished. But where?
Ends up, she's been working all this time, quietly and effectively, turning natural enemies into allies.
Her agenda is a lean but ambitious one: Win approval for the controversial third Logan Airport runway, promote more commercial air traffic at Hanscom and Worcester, and push the concept of customer service at Massport. At the same time, she is overseeing a reconstruction that will yield a virtually new Logan by 2004.
It is her first item that is inarguably her most important, and in the coming weeks, she is set to unveil an unprecedented new strategy in the Republican administration's seemingly eternal quest to build that new runway.
Buckingham, 34, revealed in a recent interview that she has worked to organize a coalition of airline chief executives and directors at half a dozen US airports seeking new runways. That high-flying group, in turn, will soon lobby Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the news media in an effort to put a united front on what is increasingly regarded as a national problem: chronic flight delays.
In stitching together the group, Buckingham is in essence trying to lift the runway issue above the morass of local, East Boston politics and play on the FAA's inherent inclination to support new runways at airports to ease delays.
Currently, the FAA is amid a yearlong study of Logan's proposal for a 5,000-foot-long commuter runway - a rather ticklish process because FAA administrator Jane Garvey is from Massachusetts and appears more deliberative with this request than others.
Buckingham is teaming up with executives of airports in San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Houston, as well as the heads of Delta, American, and United Airlines. The group will be ready by January, she said.
As Buckingham picked at a salad at the Terminal C Legal Seafoods last week, all around her, the airport looked like the reconstruction of Berlin.
Massport and the airlines are in the process of investing $3.25 billion to rebuild every terminal at Logan Airport, install massive, climate-controlled moving walkways from central parking into the terminals, construct a double-deck road system looping the property, and integrate the Ted Williams Tunnel.
The 1,200-person agency is a haven for patronage hires from administrations as far back as Frank Sargent. Loyalties swirl against one another in a cauldron of reckless spending and self-entitlement where work often ranks second to perks.
None of which seems to particularly faze Buckingham. She laughs at how she forced one Massport official to take a cheap flight to a conference from the Providence airport. She talks about morale being on the rise.
"I think I'm more than qualified for this job," she said. "You need to be a manager, you need to know politics, you need to understand public policy and complex issues."
Others agree. "She is lighting candles rather than cursing the darkness," says Fred Salvucci, a transportation guru under Michael Dukakis. "She's paying attention to the right issues."
Even her predecessor, Peter Blute, respected for his abilities but ousted in an ignominious display of booze and bared breasts, said: "I think she's done a pretty good job. She's focused and kept the ball moving."
Brian McGrory's e-mail address is mcgrory@globe.com.