Great to see Fred Ford at RFD again, even for only two hours

May 29th, 2009 at 05:36pm Chuck Sweeny

It sure was great to see Fred Ford again — on the tarmac of Chicago Rockford International Airport. He resigned as airport director in 1994 and hasn’t been back since. Ford, now an airport consultant, brought some Floridians up here to see what Rockford has done that they can replicate. The folks from Lakeland and Hardee County want to grow their airports and we’re growing an airport, so they took notes during a visit Thursday.

For those of you remember Fred, he looks about the same,  just slightly older. He’s still chomping on a cigar, probably not the same one he had when he worked here, though.

It’s not that I hadn’t seen him over the years since he left Rockford in 1994. Fred still cares deeply about RFD’s progress; we have met several times in Chicago at Gene and Georgetti and I can tell you he continued to help RFD.

Without Fred Ford’s vision and courage to take educated risks, we would not have the UPS freight hub. That’s the second largest hub in UPS’s system. It put RFD on the map as a player in the airfield industry. And it made it possible for Bob O’Brien to build on the Ford foundation (pun intended.)

I was glad we had Fred, and I’m glad we have Bob, who also is a visionary and not afraid to take a risk.

It’s the guy in between the two, James Loomis,  we could have done without as far as I’m concerned.

Read more about Fred and The Floridians’ visit in my Sunday column here at rrstar.com.

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