THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 25, 1994 TAG: 9407250046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Capt. Francis E. ``Bud'' Tardiff on Tuesday will turn over command of the U.S. Coast Guard's Aviation Technical Training Center to Capt. Lewis C. Dunn.
As many as 400 people are expected to attend the change of command ceremony at 10 a.m. at the Morale, Welfare and Recreation Pavilion on the Coast Guard complex in Elizabeth City.
``It's a time-honored tradition that is important to the transfer of command,'' said Chief Warrant Officer P.K. Gulliver, project officer for the day's events.
The function will include a visit from Adm. Edward Barrett, who once served as commanding officer for the Elizabeth City base's Aircraft Repair and Supply Center and now is the Coast Guard's chief officer of engineering, logistics and development in Washington.
A reception will follow at the pavilion, with parking in the training center's west side lot. The ceremony will be held at the base's Building 6 in the event of rain.
Tardiff and his wife, Barbara, will head to Governor's Island, N.Y., where the captain will serve as air operations officer for the Atlantic Area Headquarters. They plan to return to Elizabeth City to retire in a year or two.
``Elizabeth City is home to us - or hopefully it is going to be,'' Tardiff said Friday.
``The people of Elizabeth City and the United States Coast Guard have a special relationship,'' he added. ``It's a very comfortable place for the Coast Guard.''
Tardiff has traveled to many Coast Guard stations in his 33-year career, but the training center holds a special place in his heart. The Montana native, who grew up in Utah, served as the command's first executive officer when the training center was commissioned in August 1978.
The biggest change in the training center's 16-year history, Tardiff said, is the way instruction is delivered. ``It used to be a paper-based program. It's now performance-based.''
The captain is known in the community for his work with the Elizabeth City Area Chamber of Commerce and Rotary International.
Dunn, who is Tardiff's replacement, was most recently chief of the Coast Guard's District 1 Administration Division in Boston.
He joined the Coast Guard in 1969 after graduating cum laude from the University of Florida. He holds the Distinguished Flying Cross, the highest award given to Coast Guard aviators. Dunn received it for piloting an HH-52A helicopter in the daring rescue of 19 seamen off the Pacific Coast.
He will be joined in Elizabeth City by his wife, Jean Marie. The Dunns have three children.
The Elizabeth City five-command base, which is the city's largest employer, averages one change of command annually. But this year brings two in the same month.
Retiring Capt. Q. Karl Quinn on Friday transferred responsibility for the base's Support Center to Capt. John K. Miner.
Miner will oversee about 170 employees who maintain 68 facilities on more than 800 acres of land.
He and his wife, Lesley, arrived from Governor's Island, where Miner was in charge of maintenance and logistics. The couple have a son attending Virginia Tech.
Miner joined the Coast Guard in 1969 and has been assigned to several areas, including Elizabeth City's AR & SC in the late 1970s.
Most of the local Coast Guard's 575 civilian employees work at the AR & SC, which is charged with overhauling and repairing all the service's aircraft and associated equipment.
All enlisted Coast Guard aviators begin their formal schooling at the training center in Elizabeth City.
The center teaches five entry-level aviation rating schools, 17 advanced training classes, many correspondence courses and two ``road shows'' to about 500 students annually.
The two traveling courses are to teach air crews a new traffic-alert system for its fixed-wing aircraft.
The Coast Guard is the first military service to put the alert system's navigational equipment in its airplanes, said Gulliver, who also is the training center's assistant division officer for course writers. by CNB