How do you know when an employee loves their job? Is it that extra pep in their step? Do they whistle while they work?

These are questions no one at the Salina Airport Authority has to ask of Aircraft Rescue Firefighter Lead Dave Nease. However, if the question were up for debate, all he'd have to do is roll up his sleeve a reveal the full color Airport Authority ARFF logo tattooed on his left arm.

"I like the logo, it's an input from everybody on the ARFF team," said Nease. "I wanted the Maltese cross, someone else wanted the fire, Tim (Rogers, A.A.E., executive director) wanted to keep the Airport Authority logo part of it and Gunner (Wiles, manager of operations) wanted the "9/11" and the "343" for the 343 firefighters killed on 9/11. Everyone put down some ideas and this is what they came up with."

Before the Airport Authority put out the new logo, Nease's pride was obvious on his right arm, where a firefighting Tasmanian devil stands poised for the next challenge.

"I got Taz for my 55th birthday," explained Nease. "The logo I got almost a year ago."

More than body art has changed during the past 24 years. When Nease began his Airport Authority career, the maintenance and ARFF crew was one in the same. Eventually, Nease took over ARFF training. Then, the crews were split into two distinct groups and Nease was named ARFF lead. The ARFF crew has been getting better and better since, he said.

"Not just because of me," he elaborated. "We've come a long way just in the last three years even. Gunner has been a good asset for us. We've got guys who are interested in ARFF, instead of ARFF and maintenance. We've got some younger guys that are dedicated to it."

Nease has seen a handful of aircraft incidents while on both crews. He can recall with uncanny clarity many of the more serious aircraft mishaps he's responded to.

"The most memorable moment I've had is hearing a K-State helicopter pilot saying, 'May Day. May Day. May Day.' and then nothing," he recounted the decade old episode. "He went down in a field just north of the old tower and just south of the farmhouse."

Three maintenance and ARFF crewmen responded with two trucks. Nease remembers it as being one of the worst things he'd ever worked to that point because the crew knew the pilot. He remembers walking through the field looking for the pilot.

"One of the better feelings you'll ever get is when you see the guy's hand come up and hear him say, 'I'm right here.' And there he was," he recalled. "Alive but with five vertebrae's in his lower back crushed."

They had recently given a class at K-State informing pilots that, should something ever happen and there was no fire or danger of fire, not to move. The pilot did just that and made a full recovery.

The serious incidents at the airport have been few and far between, leaving Nease plenty of time to spend with his wife of 33 years, Janet and grandson, Aiden.

The latest crash Nease was involved in included a three-year-old and a bowl of brownie batter. When Nease responded he found that no one had been injured and the toddler had even managed to save the spatula from the floor.