LGSTX Services Fire Chief Mike Burton and family celebrating his retirement at Wilmington Air Park.
Submitted photos
WILMINGTON, Ohio — After 44 years of service, LGSTX Services Fire Chief Mike Burton retired following a long, impactful career that helped transform the Wilmington Air Park, bringing safety and security to the airport.
The Wilmington Air Park is a public-use airport located two miles from the Wilmington business district on 2,000 square miles of land, housing LGSTX Services, the Laurel Oaks Campus, KILN-Amazon Air, and several other facilities over the years.
Over the years, it has served many purposes, including being an emergency landing strip in 1940 and being commissioned by the United States Army Air Forces in 1942, when it was renamed Clinton County Army Air Field.
Later, the airport would become the Clinton County Air Force Base, supporting Air Force Reserve operations from the 1950s until the 1970s. Eventually, the airport would become the site of a Great Oaks Joint Vocational School with Laurel Oaks and went into public and commercial use.
It was at this time, starting in 1980 at Airborne Express — an express delivery company that had a hub in Wilmington before moving to Seattle — that Burton worked as security for the Wilmington Air Park for several years before helping to found the airport’s first fire rescue service.
The Crash Fire Rescue (CFR) department was located in the same place where Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting (ARFF) was established in 1984. During this time, Burton would have a hand in its founding, helping to establish the fire rescue department for the air park.
In 1994, Burton was promoted to CFR supervisor. This would add to his long list of jobs at the airport, adding supervising bus drivers and snow removal to his many tasks. That same year, CFR was renamed Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting.
He was promoted to fire chief in 2009, where Burton would work until his retirement this past month after 44 years of service. Burton served as fire chief for the Air Park for the final two decades of his career, but served the Air Park in various roles for nearly four-and-a-half decades, establishing programs and supervising services that made the entire Wilmington Air Park a safer place, and an important piece of the wider Wilmington and Clinton County community.
