Airport Administrator Performs Balancing Act

Rod Murphy’s office at Camarillo Airport is decorated like a little boy’s dream bedroom. Airplane calendars and framed pictures of helicopters and planes dot the walls while two radios buzz with continuous airport updates.

It is a playful environment, one that belies the fact that Murphy, who for more than five years has overseen day-to-day operations at Camarillo and Oxnard airports, is often embroiled in controversy over the future of the facilities.

Murphy has the difficult job of balancing the requirements of elected officials, residents and airport users with those of regulatory agencies and the expanding travel needs of the public. He has been reprimanded by county supervisors and lambasted by residents who contend that he is trying to sneak a regional airport into Ventura County without public input.

In his first couple of years on the job, Murphy was criticized for an investigation of the feasibility of privatizing the county’s airports. And when the Board of Supervisors recently delayed acceptance of Oxnard Airport’s environmental impact report and master plan, Murphy took the heat.

But those who know Murphy sympathize with how many factions he has to please and how hard it is to please everyone.

“I certainly wouldn’t want his job,” Supervisor John Flynn said. “Everybody uses airports, but they aren’t that popular to have as a next-door neighbor. He works hard and he’s fully committed to the airports, and you have to admire that. But it’s taken him a little time to get used to the fact that airports are very political, especially in Ventura County.”

Supervisor Kathy Long agreed that it’s tough, often contentious work.

“I don’t know of an airport administrator that has been loved by everyone,” she said. “He has a lot of masters to please.”

For his part, Murphy readily admits that political maneuvering is just part of the job. And he knows that he sometimes gets blamed for projects or ideas because he is the one presenting them.

“The perception is that these things are my plans, while I was just the messenger,” he said.

He tries, he said, to take the high road and not let the controversy bog him down.

“Doing the work here is not different or more difficult than any area that has an airport,” said Murphy, who had five-year stints each as airport director in Fullerton and in Riverside. “It’s all the same issues, all the same concerns with all the same limits and restrictions that I have to work within.”

Murphy, 55, said he often starts his day at 6:30 a.m. to get a jump on work before the phone starts ringing. Twelve hours later, he goes home to Oxnard, where he lives with his wife of 27 years. The couple have two children in their 20s and one grandchild.

For 13 years before Murphy worked as an airport director, he served as an air traffic controller and supervisor for the Federal Aviation Administration in different California locales.

He has long had a passion for planes. “I’ve had the bug ever since I was a Marine and worked in military aviation,” he said.

In an average day, Murphy may field community complaints about noise or safety, negotiate a lease for something like an airport hangar, meet with a committee that makes recommendations for upgrading facilities or have a conference with elected officials.

Murphy, who has an operating budget of about $3 million a year, calls himself a “glorified property manager.” He said his job is like managing a big shopping mall or an industrial park.

“That is the closest comparison, but we have a lot more federal and regulatory requirements,” he said.

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Besides managing, Murphy is also the buffer between those who want to increase services at Oxnard Airport and those who would rather see it close than allow more flights daily.

Supervisor Frank Schillo, who credits Murphy with having long-range vision, supports the idea of modestly expanding Oxnard Airport to accommodate flights throughout the state. By that, he says he means creating a facility like the one in Palm Springs, with some long-range service, but most flights traveling between 500 and 1,500 miles.

“I’ve heard more times a company say, ‘I almost moved to Ventura, but you guys don’t have an airport,’ ” Schillo said. “Salespeople travel a lot, and it would be nice to be able to fly without having an hour and a half drive to LAX.”

Schillo said Murphy has done well in a pressure-cooker situation.

“He’s got a very tough job with people jumping all over him, and he’s just trying to do the right thing,” he said. “He’s not perfect and he’s going to make people angry.”

Some of the anger, according to local officials, results from Murphy’s perspective as airport administrator.

“He has goals that don’t necessarily coincide with ours,” said Ed Sotelo, Oxnard city manager, adding that expanded service could stress Oxnard Airport beyond capacity and open a Pandora’s box of other problems. “His goal is to manage an expanding airport. Our community does not want it to grow because any additions will create traffic and demand, and we don’t want that.”

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Murphy said feelings like Sotelo’s come from misunderstandings about his intentions and the purpose of the airport’s master plan and environmental report.

“There was a perception that was difficult to overcome that we were trying to expand Oxnard Airport,” Murphy said. “But we weren’t. We weren’t going to bring in bigger airplanes.”

He said the master plan and environmental report were seen to be growth plans when they were only “supposed to be guidelines to deal with increased airport traffic if it occurred, which it didn’t.”

There were many similar misunderstandings, Murphy said.

“The term ‘regional jet’ was used and people thought that meant it was going to be a regional airport, and it wasn’t,” he said.

Currently, Oxnard Airport has eight flights daily to and from LAX. Regional airports, such as those in Santa Barbara and Burbank, serve cities farther than 500 miles away, including Portland and Denver, and the planes seat more than 50 people.

Murphy said there is no chance of Oxnard Airport becoming a regional airport because not only are residents opposed, but the facility could not handle the increased traffic. The airport is only designed to handle smaller aircraft, he said.

“The only airport that could accommodate more commercial airline traffic” is the military airport at Point Mugu, he said, noting that the location could serve the dual purpose of commercial and naval flights.

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Although some complain that Murphy does not build consensus before moving forward and is sometimes slow to reach out to the public, most agree that the airport facilities have improved mightily since his arrival.

Warren Fee, president of the Experimental Aircraft Assn., one of the biggest organizations at Camarillo Airport, said the infrastructure--runways, taxiways, ramps and restaurants--at the airports is now in excellent condition.

“It is in much better shape now than six years ago,” he said. “The gates used to sit open all the time, and there was a lot of theft. Now there is none of that.”

Camarillo Airport has a refurbished $1-million runway as of this year. Between both airports, the capital improvements budget can sometimes be as high as $6 million, but usually runs about $2 million. Next year, Camarillo Airport will get a $1-million taxiway.

Murphy said updating facilities is one of the most rewarding parts of his job.

“I love my work,” he said. “I enjoy the accomplishment of improving and remodeling infrastructure that is in need. It is very rewarding.”