Search for new Wilkes-Barre/Scranton airport leader narrowed to seven but Chermak still mum on candicacy

The search for a new Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport executive director is down to seven people, but their names remain a secret.

During an airport board meeting Thursday, airport co-solicitor Don Frederickson said 20 people applied and a search agency has narrowed the list to seven finalists.

Airport board vice chairman Chris Belles said he’s seen the applications but declined to name the seven or say if Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak is among them. As a commissioner, Chermak is also a board member.

"I cannot comment," Belles said. "It's confidential. We're sworn to secrecy."

Borys Krawczeniuk

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WVIA News

Chermak, who has a license to pilot single-engine planes, did not attend the meeting for personal reasons. In an interview Wednesday, he again refused to say if he applied and disputed he’s acting less than transparently.

“I’m being transparent,” he said, promising to address the matter when it’s appropriate.

The next steps

A board committee plans to meet Monday to discuss how and when to proceed with interviews of the finalists, Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan said. Belles said the board will likely conduct the interviews via the Internet but will probably want to speak with the successful candidate in person before hiring.

The interview committee includes Frederickson, Belles and Lackawanna County Commissioner Thom Welby.

“I want a copy of the resumes, the letters of interest, and who applied. Twenty people applied. They whittled it down to seven, so we have to know who the seven are, because we're going to have to interview whoever these people are,” Gaughan said.

Why a new leader

Carl Beardsley Jr., who led the airport to record passenger departures in his 11 years as executive director, took sabbatical leave in November for undisclosed reasons. At the time, officials wouldn’t discuss why Beardsley left. Frederickson would only say he couldn’t discuss “personnel and health issues.”

The board appointed engineering director Stephen Mykulyn as interim director in March. At the same time, the board hired ADK Consulting & Executive Search to help find Beardsley’s replacement at a cost of $47,574. An ADK official said the airport could be named by July. Mykulyn said he did not apply to remain executive director.

In other business, the board:

• Learned the electrical work on its terminal expansion will cost about $149,000 more than expected.
  Mykulyn said state law requires bids on a job remain valid for 120 days after submission. Because locking down federal grants can take months, the airport regularly must ask bidders to extend the validity of bids, he said. The airport lets bidders know they might be asked to do that in advance of bidding, he said.
  “You don't actually give a notice to proceed until you have the grant money in place,” he said.
  Joyce Electrical Inc., of Eynon, won the electrical work contract with a $431,000 bid that the board approved in November. Its bid expired Feb. 26 and the company declined to extend its validity, Mykulyn said.
  

  

  Borys Krawczeniuk

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  WVIA News

  This situation rarely happens, he said.
  “I don't recall in my time, certainly in my time here, that there's been a situation where we've had a contractor say, ‘Well, I can't hold my bid.’ But in this instance, because there is such a disparity in the first to second bid, I can understand why perhaps,” he said, adding the economy may have altered material prices.
  The board approved a contract with the next highest bidder, Urban Electrical Contractors Inc., of Dunmore, which bid $580,000.
  State and federal grants will cover almost all of the project cost with airport passenger charges paying the rest.
• Heard air service development manager Beth Coslett report 21,643 passenger departures in April, down 4% from April 2025.
  It’s the seventh monthly decrease from the previous year in the last nine months.
  “Seat availability is down 2.9% overall, and load factors are down 3.7% overall,” Coslett said.
  

  

  Borys Krawczeniuk

  /

  WVIA News

  Load factor means the percentage of available seats filled on jets leaving the airport.
  “We haven't come up with any rhyme or reason as to why this is happening,” she said. “I even reached out to the airlines, and they said it could just be what's going on with the economy and the cost of fuel prices and stuff. So, we're definitely going to keep an eye on that.”
• Honored seven people who have served as volunteer airport ambassadors for at least 20 years. The ambassadors aid airport passengers with questions or who need directions or other help.
  The seven are John and Bette Lou Brundage, of Moscow; Carol Fisher, of Scranton; Tom Kisthart, of Scranton; Marie Robson, of Clarks Summit; Ron Skamanich, of Duryea; and Rita Skechus, of Duryea.
• Heard local library leaders Scott Thomas and Michelle Riley ask for permission to set up "little free libraries" in the airport terminal.
  The free libraries are usually small enclosures where people can drop off or take books for free. They are especially prominent in Scranton’s downtown and neighborhoods.
  Scott Thomas, director of the Scranton Public Library, said the Lehigh Valley International Airport and others across the country have them.
  “We who are librarians at first, we're like, we want you to use the big free library, but what we decided to do is support little free libraries,” Thomas said. “And so, when they show up in our community - like Lackawanna County has some, and some of the nonprofits around - we go around and every two or three weeks, make sure there's books in there, make sure none of the books are in bad condition, and just, if needed, fill them up. We get tons of donated books at our libraries.”
  Riley, director of development and community relations at the Osterhout Free Library in Wilkes Barre, noted the history of cooperation between the Luzerne and Lackawanna counties’ library systems.
  “And we just support re-establishing our partnership in that way with this collaborative project,” Riley said. “We do also have a van system, and that would be the person every couple weeks to kind of be responsible for coming to check on things here."
  Mykulyn signaled support, though he wants so check with an airport vendor who sells books to passengers.
  “But I think there's probably still a way to be able to work this in,” he said.