How Duffy Deals With The Wintry Pile-Up At Marshfield Municipal

Folks who live in Wisconsin are a hearty lot, worthy of respect. After all, they know how do drive on ice. And they have to. Take the case of Harold Gaier. "Duffy" as his friends call him, is the manager of Marshfield Municipal Airport/Roy Shwery Field. He also owns a sales and leasing operation at the airport. He's also the guy who drives the snowplow to clear the runways.

That can add up to a lot of miles every Wisconsin winter.

For Duffy, it's a two-step process. First, he uses a huge snowplow, bought in cooperation with the nearby town of Marshfield, along with a smaller, truck-mounted plow, to move the white stuff to the edges of the runway. Then he uses a snowblower to send those big piles of snow into the adjacent fields.

We don't even like to use sand. It gets into everything" such as engines and props, Gaier told the Marshfield News-Herald. "The key is to keep (the runways) plowed and keep (them) plowed close."

Duffy's wife, Alice, said the airport has a $17,000 budget for snow-clearing this year. Yeah, that's a lot of money, but then, there were some pretty early snows in 2004. Late ones last Spring, as well.

Duffy, we're thinking of you and Alice down here in southwestern Florida. It's pretty cold. Temperature tomorrow morning will be in the 50s. Brrrrr.

(ANN Correspondent Rose Dorcey Contributed To This Article)

FMI: http://duffysaircraft.com