b'RUNWAYSBGR55Funding for the $50 million project wasOne of his first primary responsibilitieswe knew we really had to improve our provided by several sources: 60% fromafter arriving at BGR was to study andcommunication with the stakeholders.the FAA; 35% from the Maine Nationalrevise the bid documents. In January Guard (a key tenant/airport user); 2.5%2024, we advertised again, and sent outRestoring Confidencefrom the state of Maine; and 2.5% froma new RFP, he recalls. We received aThe airport worked with Jacobs, the local funds. new bid in March 2024, and awarded theproject engineer, to host several weekly contract to Eurovia in April 2024. meetings before and during construction. False Start Losing a full year of progress madeUsually, 50 to 80 participants attended. When Saavedra took over as airportsome stakeholders skeptical aboutFortunately, things went well in our director in November 2023, planning forthe project overall. So Saavedra andfirst year, and we stayed on schedule. We the project was well underway. It hadhis team spent the beginning of 2024eventually got their trust back, Saavedra occurred before Tony Caruso retiredreassuring all airport stakeholders that thesays of the stakeholders. as airport director earlier that year, butrepaving project was fully funded and on the overall effort was hampered by theschedule to begin that May. Since weThe second year COVID-19 epidemic. After the originalwere already a year behind the originalof construction also request for proposals was sent out,schedule, we had lost the confidencefinished on time. the airport only received one bid, andof some of them, and had to rebuildOverseeing day-to-it was twice the amount that had beentrust, Saavedra explains. For example,day operations for estimated. At that point, it was too latesome of the commercial airlines had tothe runway work was to start construction, so we had to startpull their schedule and cancel flights, soMatt Montgomery, over, explains Saavedra.they werent happy with us. Therefore,a Eurovia projectMATT MONTGOMERYsuperintendent AirportImprovement.comNovember | December 2025'