BY GREG JELLINEK, M.D. | Tahoe Plastic Surgery
Truckee Tahoe Airport Board Candidate
Hello neighbors! My name is Dr. Greg Jellinek and I am running for one of three open seats on the Truckee Tahoe Airport’s Board of Directors this autumn.
As you may know, a board of directors composed of five individuals governs our Truckee Tahoe Airport. For the last two election cycles my opponents have run as a slate for these three open positions. This year these folks are once again attempting to leverage control of the airport and the board. Can you think of any other local agency that is controlled in this manner by a closed contingent of nominees? I for one cannot.
All of the remainder of the local electoral contests are comprised of individual candidates bringing their unique talents and capabilities to their respective agency’s races. One of my opponents has already served for eight years and is looking for another four years on the board. I believe that public service should not be a second career! At the Truckee Tahoe Airport it’s time for a new face and for new ideas, ideas for airport governance from a person with a wealth of aviation experience.
A few words about myself and why I feel that I am the most qualified person for this position: I have been a contributing citizen of the town of Truckee for three decades. I am a physician practicing in Truckee and serving the local population as a member of the Tahoe Forest Hospital’s medical staff since 1982. I am an employer here and have been so for more than 30 years. I am also a pilot, but I am a member of the local community, who happens to be a pilot; not a pilot who happens to be a member of the local community.
• I have proven governing board experience – having served as the member of the board of directors of a large South Bay Hospital.
• I have proven managerial experience – having designed, built, owned and operated a very successful surgery center in Silicon Valley. I have also managed an aviation services company for more than two decades and a large surgical practice.
• I am the only candidate for this position with any aviation experience – having over three decades of piloting experience and holding multiple FAA licenses/certificates and about 3,500 hours of actual piloting time.
For the first 25 years of my medical involvement in Truckee, I commuted from the Bay Area to Truckee using an airplane. That airplane allowed me to treat my medical patients in both locations without spending the better part of a day traveling between those two locations. There were many days when I would attend to patients in Los Gatos in the morning and then to patients in Truckee in the afternoon, or vice versa; a mission that would have been impossible without an airplane and a good destination airport here in Truckee.
Now that I am living full time in Truckee I no longer have to deal with that commute, and the airplane is instead used to support my ongoing involvement in several aviation related charitable organizations such as Angel Flight West, the Veteran’s Airlift Command, and the Wounded Warriors’ Project. Again the Truckee Tahoe Airport is my connection to these charitable activities.
For more information about myself, please take a look at our airport election web site: www.TruckeeTahoeAirportCandidate.com.
Where am I going with all of this?
Of the four candidates running for those three open seats on the airport’s board, I am the only one of these candidates with any individual aviation experience! Having flown into and out of Truckee Tahoe Airport over 1,000 times over the last 30 years I know the Truckee Tahoe Airport in ways that my opponents cannot begin to fathom.
Our airport has the potential to be a tremendous economic engine as our mountain community works its way out of this prolonged recession. My plan would be to allow the airport to develop to its potential to serve the community while continuing to improve upon its reputation as a good corporate neighbor! (No, we do NOT need commercial airline service here – just a clean, well-maintained place for airplanes, and an economic “gateway” to the Truckee/North Lake Tahoe region.)
By volunteering to serve for four years in this very important position, and with your support and votes, I hope give back to Truckee/North Tahoe by applying my aviation expertise to providing intelligent direction and problem solutions to the airport and at the same time demanding that the airport be accountable to the community at large.
As the independent candidate for the Truckee Tahoe Airport’s Board of Directors, I would appreciate your vote on Nov. 6.
