Airport Authority Leader to Step Down after Three Decades
After a 34-year career at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, president and CEO Alfonso Denson will step down in early 2018.
Denson was head of the airport authority for 17 years. He oversaw upgrades to the airport terminal and the addition of a federal customs inspection station for international travelers, the only one in the state.
According to a Birmingham Airport Authority statement, Denson led projects including increasing the length of a main runway from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, expanding the aircraft parking area to 400,000 square feet, and “acquiring nearly 800 properties through the noise and environmental land acquisition program,” which the statement says was made possible by Denson obtaining more federal funding.
Last year, Denson won a Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Airport Executives.
He has a base yearly salary of $398,549, which is higher than those in similar positions, even at much larger airports. The airport board plans to hire a consultant to help with its search for a new leader.
From painting to producing: Birmingham DJ Andrea Really releases first album
Birmingham DJ Andrea Really wasn't always a music producer. She used to be a prolific painter. But when her art studio burned down in 2017, she pivoted careers. Really spoke with WBHM about that journey upon the release of her first album this summer, called Zeitgeist.
A year after Helene, a group of raft guides embarks on a river clean-up mission
A popular rafting river in the Appalachian mountains is still closed a year after Hurricane Helene, because there's just too much debris. Now, rafting guides have come together to help clean it up.
Lesotho’s Famo music: from shepherd songs to gang wars
In Lesotho, a style of traditional accordion music called Famo has become entangled with deadly gang rivalries. Once the soundtrack of shepherds and migrant workers, today it's linked to killings, government bans — and a fight over cultural identity.
Comic Cristela Alonzo grew up in fear of border patrol. ICE has ‘brought it all back’
For the first seven years of her life, Alonzo lived in an abandoned diner in a south Texas border town. Her new Netflix stand-up special is called Upper Classy.
Compass-Anywhere real estate merger could squeeze small brokerages
The deal, announced earlier this week, would combine the two largest U.S. residential brokerages by sales volume.
Police say ‘everyone has been accounted for’ in Michigan church attack that killed 4
The suspect, Thomas Jacob Sanford, served in the Marines from 2004 to 2008, military officials confirmed to NPR. He was killed in a shootout with police.
