Although 70 applicants from across the country applied to be the next manager of the Heber City Municipal Airport, the person approved had local experience that set him apart.

Adam Bunker was promoted after more than three years as the airport’s assistant manager. He was nominated by Mayor Heidi Franco and confirmed by the Heber City Council on Tuesday.

Bunker, 25, grew up obsessed with aviation, in no small part because his father was a naval engineer. As a kid, he devoured all the books in the aviation section of his elementary school library.

When he started attending Utah Valley University in 2021, Bunker wanted to be a pilot, but he switched programs and completed a bachelor’s degree in airport management. Then, he earned a master’s degree in engineering technology from the university because he was interested in the business and technological aspects of airport management.

Bunker began his professional career as an airport operations specialist at Spanish Fork Municipal Airport in 2022. He joined the Heber City Municipal Airport in 2023 as assistant airport manager, overseeing day-to-day operations, supporting the airport manager by processing permits, attending meetings and community events and ensuring Federal Aviation Administration compliance.

“You get a little taste of everything. You might have to wear sunscreen and Carhartts to work one day, and then a suit to work the next,” he said. “There’s grounds maintenance. There are labor-intensive projects that you get to see go through and participate in, and then there’s also political and process and admin stuff. … I don’t think there’s very many jobs with this variety or this amount of creative problem solving.”

Bunker has served as acting airport manager since early April, when the previous manager, Travis Biggs, left the role. 

To help fill the void, the city approved the three-person airport team working more hours than usual. With such a small staff — which Bunker and Franco hope to expand — efficiency matters. Improving productivity at the airport will be Bunker’s top priority stepping into a managerial role.

“I plan to invest a little more time into the training of employees. It’s no secret that Heber’s grown, and we’ve had to adapt with it, so I think it’s not really an airport that can be run by one person,” he said.

Bunker said many small, municipal airports are stuck in the past when it comes to digitizing information and automating tasks.

“If we have a filing cabinet full of leases, there are airports that have let those lapse before, and people haven’t been compliant or haven’t paid in sometimes years,” he said.

He said the Heber City Municipal Airport’s workflow has been “notoriously slow” in the past and that there hasn’t been an easy way for the public to get information from Heber City Municipal Airport other than “showing up to the office and asking for someone to print off a piece of paper.”

Bunker has implemented his airport management software, Tamarac Technologies, at the Heber City Municipal Airport to help remedy that. The software has been implemented in 15 airports across the country since its launch in 2023.

The software compiles all information a manager could need, from leases to contact information, in one place. It also has tools for billing, employee scheduling and communication, task checklists and tracking of hangar leases and insurance to ensure they remain up to date.

“I like to think of it as another employee that likes to do all the boring things,” Bunker said.

It also has an interactive map of the Heber City Municipal Airport. Bunker and his team are currently building a public-facing version of the map, including hangar space, rates and fees.

Bunker hopes that embracing technology at the airport frees up employees to focus on community events and outreach and expanding general aviation, or aviation by civilians, which are Bunker’s other top priorities as manager.

There are two common misconceptions about the airport: that it is subsidized by local taxes and only for “the rich and famous,” as Bunker put it.

“Odds are it’s your neighbor that’s here, not some guy in Park City that has a seventh house there,” he said.

Additionally, grants from the Federal Aviation Administration and Utah Department of Transportation cover about 95% of the airport’s funding, with airport revenue supplying the rest.

Bunker wants the Heber City Municipal Airport to become more of an economic and public benefit by adding hangars to support general aviation.

“We have a waiting list that’s, I would need to check, but 300 people long that would love to come put a small aircraft here,” he said. “I would love for the community to think of the airport fondly, and also make the airport very accessible for the community.”

Franco shares that goal.

“We want this to be, like Adam’s saying, an asset for our community, as well as for the next generation of flyers, and for them to be inspired here, just like he was inspired,” she said.

The post Heber City Airport’s new manager prioritizes efficiency, community outreach appeared first on Park Record.

The Park City School District will launch an aviation maintenance program for high school students next year using funds obtained through a statewide grant program focused on technical education.

Park City High School already has an aviation program as part of its Career and Technical Education classes, which lets students learn how to pilot aircraft through a flight simulator lab, as well as a drone program for students to build drones and obtain their license. Students also have opportunities to take technical education courses on construction management, architectural design, health sciences and other specialized fields.

“We’re hoping to address an underserved market of students,” said Trip Marshall, an instructor for Park City High School. “There are a lot of kids who love to work on things and love aviation, but they aren’t necessarily interested in being a pilot. This will help bring in those types of students who want to make a good living by working on things or kids going into aerospace engineering so they can understand how aircraft work structurally.”

Marshall said he viewed the aviation maintenance classes as an extension of what the district currently offers, and he expects the new program to launch in the spring of next year.

“What we’re going to do depends on what curriculum we wind up adopting,” he said. “We’ll have some classroom time where they learn shop techniques … and we’re hoping to have actual aircraft components for them to work on. We haven’t decided on anything as to the scale of that, but it could be something as simple as sheet metal fabrication and simple projects to actual aircraft components, including engines, airframes and avionics.”

The program’s classroom education is similar to what industry workers call their “generals,” or the classroom instruction on aviation maintenance that is required to obtain proper licensing, Marshall said. Students will learn basic aviation maintenance laws and how to read plans and schematics.

The maintenance classes are important to offer for students’ immediate education, but it’s also key in combating a growing shortage of aviation professionals in the United States, which has affected mechanics, air traffic controllers and pilots.

“Nationwide, there are about 20,000 to 30,000 unfilled positions projected by 2028,” Marshall said. “Think about how annoyed we get with delays at the airport because we can’t get on the plane on time, or there’s no aircraft available. Maintenance has a direct impact on air travel, on air cargo and on global economies, and mechanics are required, not just needed or wanted.”

Marshall said the classroom instruction will be based on the Federal Aviation Administration’s guidelines for teaching about “experimental, homebuilt aircraft.” He said he may need to take a few personal development courses to supplement his own certifications, but he is qualified to teach the class, which means the district will not need to hire another staff member with an aviation maintenance speciality.

The district is funding the high school class and its equipment through the Utah Board of Education’s Catalyst Center Grant Program, which was created by the state Legislature last year. Thirty-five applications for more than $200 million in requests were submitted last year for 2026’s funding round.

Specifically, the school district received $391,500, which Marshall said will cover at least the first few years of the aviation maintenance program.

“The Catalyst Center grants are looking for opportunities to allow students to close the gap between the theoretical, the classroom and the practical workspace, or what I guess we would call the ‘real world,’” he said. “It gives students the opportunity to explore careers, gain skills with hands-on experiences and work on projects that are shaped by industry partners.”

“I also want to thank the community for the support they’ve had for the aviation department here at the high school,” Marshall said. “It’s inspired us to grow and expand. The kids are loving the program, and they work really hard. I would say the rigor in the classes is very high, and I appreciate the community support to keep us going. We love what we do, but we love that the community likes it as well.”

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