b'RUNWAYSGRR 57Maintenance personnel built the trailer during winter, after construction season was over.with a standard pickup truck. The 40-foot trailer can carry up toLoading and unloading the barriers was 160 barricades at a time, making the process significantly faster,also a time drain for staff. You had to go safer and more efficient. It is also used to store the safety barriersback to the shop and to the airfield over when not in active use.and over again, says Airfield Maintenance Maintenance personnel managed to design and construct theSuperintendent Rory Wolters. DIY solution between their other regular duties and spent onlyA few years ago, Shirey and the team $10,000 on materials.constructed a makeshift trailer from the bed of an old pontoon boat and pulled it behind aRORY WOLTERSTheir initiative and accomplishment have not gone unnoticed by the airports top leadership.pickup truck. That could accommodate 32 barricades and worked for a while. At the time, we didnt have to supply contractors The barricade trailer project is an accuratewith barricades since they normally supplied their own during the reflection of our commitment to improving thebidding process, Shirey recalls. As time progressed, we were operations of airport maintenance, says Torysupplying barricades for bigger jobs and the demand required a Richardson, president and chief executivebigger trailer to safely transport them.officer of the Gerald R. Ford International Airport Authority. We are grateful to have skilled teamThats when the team went back to the drawing board and members who go above and beyond to servecreated a larger, purpose-built trailer. Last fall, the airport approved the community in innovative ways. TORY RICHARDSON Shireys proposal to construct an entirely new trailer from the ground up to store and haul 160 barricades. Lonnys a very talented Added Protectionindividual and does all our fabrication work, Wolters says. When he For years, GRRs 200-some barricades werecame up with this idea, we decided to just let him run with it.stored in a maintenance shed at the end of aThe initial design was a 46-foot trailer that could accommodate runway. Wed keep them on the ground, butall of the airports barricades, but it proved to be hard to then things would fall on them, or theyd getmaneuver. It was bad for turns, says Shirey. It was just so long knocked around, explains Lonny Shirey, theand so massive that I figured it wouldnt make a wide turn safely. equipment operator and maintenance teamSo I knocked it down to 40 feet.member who spearheaded the fix. And whenDesign work was completed in September, and the wheels, you loaded them into the truck each time youLONNY SHIREY rims, axles, lighting and steel were ordered shortly there after. needed them, they often got damaged. TheConstruction began in December (after the fall airfield construction lights alone at the top of each barricade can run upwards of $25season), and took about eight weeks to complete. The team apiece, so youre talking about damage that can get quite costly. worked on the trailer between its other winter duties. AirportImprovement.comJuly | August 2023'