FEBRUARY 14, 2006, FARMINGVILLE, NY - Supervisor Brian X. Foley today commended Jim LaCarrubba, the newly appointed Commissioner of Aviation and Transportation for a job well done in clearing the more than 15 inches of snow from Brookhaven’s Calabro Airport and opening for business by 9:00 a.m. Brookhaven’s Calabro Airport was in fact the first general aviation airport to open on Long Island after the Blizzard of 2006.

“In the past, with more than a foot of snow, it would have been days before this airport was open,” noted Supervisor Foley. “I want to thank Commissioner LaCarrubba and the airport staff for the hard work they put in to get the more than sixty acres of runways, taxiways, parking and other paved areas cleared.”

“The airport staff was fantastic,” LaCarrubba noted. “They worked extremely hard through a long, tough day to get our facility cleared and ready to operate.”

“I have personally never seen the airport recover operations so quickly,” said Jeffrey DeCarlo, Associate Dean and Director of the National Aviation Technology Center™ (NATC™). “Marty Holley (Dean of the Dowling College School of Aviation) and I routinely work with some of the largest airports in the United States. These airport operators include the Port Authority of NY & NJ (operators of JFK International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport) and the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority (operators of Washington Reagan National Airport and Dulles Airport). I believe the operators of these major airports would have been impressed by the snow removal operation spearheaded by Commissioner LaCarrubba, Bob Miller, and the airport team”.

The NATC is the Research and Development division of the Dowling College School of Aviation. The NATC is the home of a Virtual Systems Laboratory that performs ‘leading-edge’ virtual reality simulation, modeling and training. The NATC is working on several major projects that include Air Traffic Control and Airport operations. Recently, Dowling College announced a NASA grant for $3 million to develop and demonstrate a “Virtual Airport.” This project follows a grant award last year of $1.7 million that is part of an upgrade and enhancement to The Virtual Systems Laboratory.

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Kara Hahn, Public Information Officer
631-451-6260
516-639-3788