Eugene Airport recognized for excellence by TSA
Eugene OR Dec 22 2020 Eugene’s airport, Mahlon Sweet Field, received top agency honors for excellence for airports of its size by the Transportation Security Administration
This award recognizes Mahlon Sweet Field for outstanding local leadership, commitment to empowering employees and working with stakeholders to ensure a superior passenger experience for the traveling public.
“We have a positive working relationship with our TSA partners, so really a lot of these efforts have been mutual efforts. Still, it feels nice to be recognized for it,” said Cathryn Stephens, the acting airport director at Mahlon Sweet Field.
TSA commends Mahlon Sweet Field’s safety initiative, named “Building Effective EUG Security,” or BEES, which focuses on security awareness and engagement across the airport community. It was created by Tammie Hartje, the Eugene airport security and emergency manager.
“We’ve also had brought in specialized trauma kits for the ‘Stop the Bleed’ efforts. Those were placed at strategic locations around our terminal building and then we did training for both our airport employees, our tenant employees and the TSA,” Stephens said.
The airport developed training opportunities with live fire explosive demonstrations and raised awareness about human trafficking, acknowledging the role in which airports can play such issues.
“This recognition from the TSA echoes what we already know in Southwest Oregon: the Eugene airport makes every effort to provide the flying public with the best and safest experience possible,” U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said.
DeFazio has repeatedly pushed the TSA to deploy state-of-the-art security technology to the Eugene Airport. In 2019, DeFazio helped the Eugene Airport secure additional explosive detection system machines.
