SANFORD — One of first jobs Bill Kostis performed at Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport was painting numbers on one of the runways. He was in high school at the time — he graduated in 1966.

One of his other jobs in those days involved keeping the 1942 Westinghouse beacon in good order.

“I used to change the bulbs in the 1960s,” he said in a recent interview.

Kostis is still at the airport — his business, Southern Maine Communications, is in the airport industrial park, about as close to the field as one can get.

He and his sons Jeff and Greg are the fellows who make sure the lines of communication are open and running between police, fire and other first responders and dispatch agencies, along with other communications-related activities. His wife Julie manages the office.

The old, rotating beacon, a Westinghouse model DCB 36, he pointed out, overlooks the airport. Its purpose during World War II and after — and again, as it turns out — is to guide pilots to the airport at night or in inclement weather.

When a plan to replace the old beacon surfaced about a decade ago, Kostis decided to make an offer, and so acquired it and the tower from the town.

“I wanted to make sure it was preserved,” he said. “I’m a war baby. I like history.”

He has kept it working. He likes things that work, and he likes to work.

Rather than have it sit idle, he leases space on the tower, which means it pays for itself and the maintenance involved — this fall, when the weather cools, the old tower will get a paint job.

The original beacon was installed back when the federal government was expanding the nation’s airports. In 1943, the U.S. Navy made the Sanford airport an auxiliary of Brunswick Naval Air Station. A torpedo squadron and a fighter squadron were stationed at the facility and the airport was used for training exercises. Eventually the field, which began as an airstrip and a hangar by Goodall Mills in the 1930s, was turned over to the town. It was first run by an Airport Commission, and later by selectmen. These days, it is a department of the city, and managed by M. Allison Rogers.

“It has been operational since it was installed,” said Kostis of the 1942 Westinghouse model beacon, though there was a time after the war there were no lights at the field at all. In 1961, the town managed to light runway 1432 — the 5,000 foot long runway, and restarted the beacon, he said.

Kostis has collected photos and a wealth of information about the devices. According to a 1941 Westinghouse memo, the beacons use a 1,000 watt lamp that throws a 1.8 million candlepower beam in two directions simultaneously. On clear nights, it states, the beams can be seen for 20 miles.

Kostis has a million airport stories — interesting ones — stories that perhaps only someone who has spent long years there might know.

He talked about when Winfield Young was airport manager and lived in a house on Airport Road.

“When an airplane would buzz the field, they had a switch in their house to turn on the airstrip lights and the beacon,” said Kostis.

Now, the old beacon, dark for eight to 10 years, is back in use again — at least temporarily — while a construction project is ongoing at the airfield — thanks to Bill Kostis, said Rogers, the airport manager, who calls him “our hero.”

Rogers explained that while she was coordinating with various utilities for construction of the airport’s new snow removal equipment building, it was discovered that the underground 35-year-old power line that runs from the construction site to the west side of the airport had been spliced many times — too many.

“Replacing that line was not included in the original scope of work, so we set about working with CMP on a solution to replace it while we were doing construction,” said Rogers in an email. “The line serves two tenants and their aircraft hangars as well as the (newer) airport beacon.”

“I was alarmed to discover that CMP may take as long as four months to complete their part of the work, leaving tenants without power and the airport and its users without a functioning beacon,” said Rogers. “We began looking into large generators, but the cost was exorbitant.”

She said long term tenant Robert Curry generously offered to forego a generator, and another solution was worked out to keep the second tenant with a source of power.

“But what about the beacon? About this time is when our hero emerged,” she said.

Kostis, she said, had kept the old beacon in good working order all this time, “just in case.”

“So when CMP cut the power, Kostis turned his on and the beacon runs as well as it did, years ago,” Rogers explained.

Kostis isn’t particularly comfortable with the “hero” talk.

“Don’t over dramatize,” he said, and the conversation turned to painting the tower in the fall.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.