Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Johnny Roscoe in the new director of the city of Fayetteville Aviation Division, and Charles Mark Whitaker was recently hired as Fayetteville’s building safety director.
As director of Fayetteville’s Aviation Division, Roscoe will manage the Fayetteville Executive Airport (Drake Field). The Fayetteville airport is an FAA Part 139 Class IV certified General Aviation Airport that supports commercial service passenger carrying aircraft on an unscheduled basis. The city assumed operation of the Fixed Based Operation (FBO) in March 2013.
Roscoe has been involved with aviation operations at various levels throughout his career, including a staff assignment at the Pentagon in Washington D.C., where he oversaw foreign military sales programs and security cooperation efforts with Mid-East and African countries. He was an operations group commander and then a wing commander where he ran two of the largest Department of Defense airports in the world. he also has 20 years in program management and strategic operations, with experience in stakeholder management, critical issues, risk mitigation, return on investment (ROI), and cross-functional integration.
Roscoe was born in Centralia, Pa., and graduated in 1988 from the United States Air Force Academy with a bachelor’s degree in Science. Roscoe also holds a master’s degree in human resources development degree and in strategic studies. He became a career pilot and has accumulated more than 4,400 hours in multi-engine aircraft.
Whitaker will manage the inspections and plan review services of the building safety division and provide a help source to other divisions such as planning and engineering and the fire department. He will also coordinate with local and state professional construction groups to ensure that Fayetteville is up-to-date and consistent with the administration of local building codes.
Whitaker comes to Fayetteville with an long career in municipal public service. He served the building codes department for the city of Little Rock in various positions for 18 years in positions that included plans examiner, plans examination administrator and deputy building official.
While in Little Rock, Whitaker also taught part-time in the ETAS Department of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for 12 years, establishing and teaching a new senior level codes class as well as other construction classes. He has also served as the senior project construction manager for the Arkansas Department of Education, which involved all new construction for grades K-12; overseeing and determining construction project funding, code compliance to applicable fire, building and PME regulations; and site visits for compliance on approved construction plans.
Whitaker has also served on the International Code Council (ICC) National Storm Shelter committee and helped publish the inaugural edition of the ICC 500, which is considered the premiere guidebook of Storm Shelter Design. In 2005 he traveled to Russia and met with civic leaders in Moscow, including the Vice Deputy Minister and Department Heads and gave a presentation on the I-codes. Similar presentations were also made in Novosibirsk, Siberia, and St. Petersburg.