While Atlanta airport interim General Manager Miguel Southwell is with Mayor Kasim Reed in Brazil on a trade mission promoting that country’s connectivity with Atlanta, other airport and community leaders will head to Dakar, Senegal.
Alrene Barr, the airport’s international relations manager, will be joined by Chris Young, executive director of United Nations training agency CIFAL Atlanta, which is housed at Kennesaw State University.
On April 11-13, they will represent Atlanta at a seminar on assistance for airports in developing nations, which is to follow a regional airport security conference put on by the Airports Council International’s (ACI) Africa branch.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has been integral to an effort facilitated by CIFAL in partnership with ACI to train airport leaders from across the Western Hemisphere and around the world. Last year, CIFAL held a training summit in Marietta. The Atlanta airport often shares its expertise with inbound delegations.
Training is a special passion for Mr. Southwell, who served on the board of ACI’s Latin America and Caribbean division for a decade while working at Miami International Airport.
He’s now past president of that board and this year started a two-year term chairing the ACI Fund Council. Interest from the $1 million fund pays for professional training for airport leaders in what the United Nations calls LDCs, or least-developed countries. Thirty-four of the 49 are in Africa, including Senegal. Haiti is the only one in the Western Hemisphere.
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