POCATELLO — Transportation Security Administration workers throughout the state have gotten their paychecks on time all year due in large part to Kimberlee Green, a Pocatello Regional Airport security officer.

The Pocatello, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Sun Valley and Lewiston airports also have immediate access to important data using a metrics dashboard that Green helped devise.

For efforts that went well beyond her job description, Green, of Pocatello, has been chosen as TSA’s top security officer of the year, beating out competition from the likes of Los Angeles International Airport, New York-based John F. Kennedy International Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Green emphasized that the award acknowledges a team effort, and her accomplishment wouldn’t have been possible without her coworkers.

“It’s all family here,” Green said.

TSA employs 40,000 transportation security officers. Pocatello Regional Airport ranks as the 285th busiest airport in the U.S., screening 46,371 passengers during 2019. By comparison, the nation’s busiest airport, Los Angeles International Airport, screened more than 42 million passengers last year.

Los Angeles International Airport also has 10 times more TSA workers than are employed throughout all of Idaho, said Andy Coose, TSA’s federal security director for Idaho, based in Boise. Coose is unaware of any other employee from an airport as small as Pocatello’s ever claiming the national award.

“I would say it’s highly unusual, and it may have never happened before,” Coose said.

Green was nominated by her local manager, Paul Hobbs, whose initial write-up was supported by Roger Schumann, TSA manager in Idaho Falls. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Coose explained payroll adjustments had to be made, including the implementation of a special status for workers who were sent home when diminished passenger loads didn’t necessitate full security staffing.

Green, who is among a small group of transportation security officers with the training to handle payroll issues, was constantly on the phone fielding payroll questions from the state’s other spoke airports.

Coose believes her aid helped keep morale up among Idaho’s TSA workers and enabled them to focus on their jobs rather than worrying about their paychecks.

“I believe that good news spreads and it basically impacts the overall perception and reputation of a place,” Coose said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the work done by TSA officers at airports has an impact on the overall reputation of that airport.”

Green was raised in Idaho Falls and moved to Pocatello to take a job with TSA in 2011. She transferred to Rock Springs, Wyoming, to work for TSA for less than a year in 2014 before returning to the Pocatello Regional Airport.

Green said the airport has a lot of regular travelers, and she knows them by name.

Had it been a normal year, Green would have been flown to Washington, D.C., to receive her award in person. Instead, TSA Administrator David Pekoske announced winners virtually on Thursday from the agency’s headquarters in Springfield, Virginia, and a virtual awards ceremony will be hosted during the coming week.

TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said multiple officers often claim the award during some years, but Green was the clear choice and was named as the sole recipient this year. She’ll receive a plaque in the mail. Coose also traveled to Pocatello to take Green and her entire team out to lunch.

Green said she learned all of the skills now being recognized by TSA from training opportunities offered to the agency’s workers.

”All of these things I won the award for I wouldn’t have gotten if TSA hadn’t given me the opportunity to learn,” Green said.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Green said TSA workers have taken on new responsibilities, such as regular sanitizing and cleaning of overhead compartments in airplanes. Employees also change their gloves regularly and wear surgical masks, and they ask travelers to wear masks. Green said new Plexiglass barriers are planned at Pocatello Regional Airport’s screening area.

Though fewer passengers are now flying, Dankers said airports that specialize in domestic flights, such as Pocatello Regional Airport, are recovering more quickly from the economic hit of the coronavirus than airports that offer heavy international travel.