SEDONA, AZ — Edward ‘Mac’ McCall, A.A.E., says he has the best job in aviation — general manager for the Sedona Airport Administration. It’s a long way from chief of operations at O’Hare International, where he also coordinated the army that is ORD’s snow removal team. When McCall took over as director of the Sedona Airport in 1999, the community was up in arms. “They were having lots of problems,” explains McCall. “They decided they needed someone with a broad range of experience.” Most importantly, he says, they needed for the airport to change its image, and to give it a face, a community identity.

Sedona is a forest of red rocks, a spiritual vortex, a community of artisans, a place for retirees. It has a vista that can be called unparalleled, and much of that vista is federal parkland. Thus, Sedona’s growth, which has been significant over the past 15 years, is restricted. And with the onset of high-end resorts, it has found its way onto the celebrity circuit.

Says McCall, “There are specific locales where celebrities and high-income people with access to corporate jets like to go — like Aspen, Telluride. We’re going to be in that class within the next three to five years. We have some very high-end resorts that are now advertising in those magazines that those people get.”

Located some two hours straight north of Phoenix off Interstate 17, or 30 minutes south of Flagstaff, Sedona sits in Yavapi County, which actually owns the airport. It leases the facility to the independent Sedona Airport Administration, formed in 1971 originally as the Sedona Oak Creek Airport Authority.

The airport has seen most of its growth since the late 1980s and has had a series of private enterprises come and go. In 1993-94, the Sedona Airport Administration began taking over the refueling and hangar management by buying up the existing businesses.

As the airport grew in the 1990s and the community along with it, the role of the airport became a question and the noise associated with it became a target. And it is a very visible target, sitting atop a mesa more than 4,000 feet above city center. The airport road is well-known locally for its overlook of the region, perfect for sunsets, that sits about a half mile from the airport entrance.

Explains McCall, “One of the big problems was with the neighbors over noise. And they were completely not addressing it. One thing we know in aviation is that is one thing you cannot ignore. You have to be a community friendly airport.”