ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – The search is on for the next manager of the Delta County Airport.
In December, former manager Robert Ranstadler announced that he would be resigning. He officially stepped down earlier this month.
Now, the Airport Advisory Board is evaluating applicants to fill the vacant position.
“We’ve received several candidates,” said Advisory Board Chair Brian Herioux. “Of those candidates, we’re interviewing four of them. We’re doing the first round of interviews this week, and we’re going to do on-site interviews after that. We anticipate the selection process to go three, maybe four more weeks at the most. Then, we’ll go through the process of hiring, which may take a couple weeks.”
With Ranstadler’s assistant manager also resigning in December, Herioux says the goal is to find new management as soon as possible.
“Our initial hope was to have someone here before he left, but that didn’t pan out,” he said. “I wish I wish I could say we’ve never been here before, but we have.”
Ranstadler previously told WZMQ 19 that he felt the board did not act in a timely enough manner when he asked for an increase in pay. Now compensation for a new manager may be a bit higher.
“We had polled some local airports and found out what we already knew, which is we were behind,” said Herioux. “In December, the Board of Commissioners approved a salary range which is higher than what the last manager and assistant manager made. I believe it was $75,000 to $85,000.”
As for day-to-day operations, it’s business as usual. According to Herioux, passenger numbers have even grown since the return of overnight flights in December.
“We typically do really well with boardings when we do overnights,” he said. “We boarded 1,277 passengers in January. We’ve got to go back to ’22 to have a year that good.”
Herioux says the Advisory Board is making progress on other projects, like enhancing airport security to allow for bigger planes and more passengers, to keep things moving as the managerial search continues.
“As our security goes up and the planes get larger, our sterile area is smaller than it needs to be,” said Herioux. “We have a terminal study coming up in the coming months, hopefully with construction in ’26 or ’27. Once we get new management in, we’ll be working on a path forward to grow our airport.”
Click here for more information on Ranstadler’s resignation.
