Delta County Airport Manager Robert Ranstadler and Assistant Airport Manager Robyn Morrison

ESCANABA — Delta County will soon be looking for new leadership at the Delta County Airport, just a year after the hire of Robert Ranstadler as the airport’s manager. Ranstadler announced his resignation Tuesday, only hours after the resignation Assistant Airport Manager Robyn Morrison.

“I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with the current system. Of you look at the environment as a whole. You know, including former manager Kelly Smith, who retired in 2018, I’m the fifth manager at the airport in approximately six years. Assistant Manager Morrison is the fourth manager at the airport scene in about six, seven years. So it’s indicative of me that there, there’s a larger problem there,” Ranstadler told the board of commissioners after reading a prepared statement announcing his plans to leave the airport Feb. 7. (See related story.)

Ranstadler first took the helm of the airport Oct. 10, 2023. He was hired to replace former Delta County Airport Manager Andrea Nummilien, who left the airport in June of that year, citing what she said was a “constant barrage of stress” caused by county commissioners doing “things that you wouldn’t expect to have to deal with in a professional setting.”

Assistant Airport Manager Robyn Morrison started her own position on Nummilien’s last day and, due to federal regulations, the county had only 90 days to find a licensed airport manager or risk the airport shutting down completely. To avoid the shutdown, Morrison took the state’s airport manager licensure test early, and Ranstadler was licensed not long after his hire. Prior to his hire, Ranstadler had spent 20 years working in aviation as a Marine.

Nummilien’s departure has continued to reverberate through the county. At various points, Nummilien pointed to the actions of former county commissioners Bob Barron, Bob Petersen, and Former Board Chair Dave Moyle — all of whom were removed in a recall election last May — as contributing to her departure.

“It is with deepest regret that I leave a position that I love but I can no longer conscionably follow the ‘new direction’ the County Board of Commissioners has chosen to go under the ‘leadership’ of the chairman,” Nummilien wrote in her resignation letter.

Following his hire, Ranstadler told the commission the airport was in “administrative crisis” and there were “numerous missing records at the airport.”

“It’s almost like a vacuum of records just having completely disappeared or not being kept up since early 2021,” Ranstadler told the commission at the Dec. 7, 2023 meeting.

Ranstadler’s comments prompted the commission to launch an investigation into activities at the airport. That investigation — led by the county’s then-attorney Scott Graham under the direction of the past board of commissioners — was ultimately forwarded to the FAA. No action was taken by the federal body.

The currently-seated commission is working to gain the security clearance necessary to fully-review the investigation documents, which contain privileged information about the airport’s inner workings. Commissioner Steve Viau, who will be leaving the board at the end of the year, made a motion at Tuesday’s meeting to expedite the process and get access to the information by Thursday or Friday.

Many of the comments made Tuesday by both Ranstadler and the commissioners took aim at the airport advisory board.

“Our past airport manager said she was drowning and she got no help from our airport advisory board. Our current administrator has said he is drowning and is not getting help from his airport advisory board,” said van Ginhoven, who noted the majority of the advisory board had been there for nearly a decade and had watched manager and assistant managers come and go.

During commissioner comments, van Ginhoven made a motion to give the airport board a vote of no confidence, essentially declaring that the county board had found them ineffectual. The move would have removed the entire airport board in one fell swoop and left the county board with not only managing the hire of Ranstadler’s and Morrison’s replacements but also appointing a new slate of airport board members.

Ranstadler — who argued the commissioners should take a more active role in the hiring process and consider input from aviation tenants and other airport managers, past and present — was allowed to participate in the discussion. He opposed the removal of the board en masse, saying many of the board members might not clearly understand their role on the board.

“My recommendation and suggestion is that I would, I would think … (if I were) in the County Board of Commissioners’ mind, (I’d) want to take a very close look at those airport bylaws and perhaps sit down and maybe put something in writing that clearly defines what the responsibilities of the airport board are. And if at that point the airport board members feel they can’t fulfill those responsibilities because perhaps they don’t have the time or whatever the reason is, then maybe it is time for a change,” he said.

Only van Ginhoven supported the no confidence vote, with the rest of the board of commissioners voting to leave the board in place.