ESCANABA — Delta County Airport Manager Robert Ranstadler announced his resignation during Tuesday’s Delta County Board of Commissioners meeting. The statement he read announcing his resignation is published here in its entirety.

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Good evening, members of the board. The last time I delivered a major department head update was earlier this year on Feb. 6. My briefing took place on the heels of a failed FY23 FAA inspection that I first inherited and then corrected after being hired as a Delta County Airport Manager.

Since that time, we have made many strides forward at the airport, including abating costly tax penalties due to a backlog of bookkeeping issues and flawlessly passing our subsequent FY24 FAA Part 139 annual inspection. I have additionally appeared before this body over the past year delivering other good news including accomplishments made in replacing aging airfield equipment, the securing of new airport improvement grants, advancements in developing a more robust airport security plan, the recent execution of a strategic partnership between the airport and AEG fuels, and the adoption of a new airport fee schedule, the latter pair of which has already netted the airport greater than projected revenue.

Unfortunately, many of the resource and staffing shortages I identified since first taking over the airport continue to present numerous challenges. As I shared in my February address to the county board, our airfield operations department, which does triple duty, by also serving as our airport firefighting staff and fixed phase operator fueling staff, is critically shorthanded.

Moreover, we lack … sufficient full time administrative staff to keep pace with the daily operations, long term planning, and regulatory commitments of a commercial service airport. I additionally mentioned during my last major update that I had worked multiple 60 70 hour work weeks correcting the hundreds of discrepancies discovered during the airport’s FY23 FAA periodic inspection.

Since then, I have spent additional, uncompensated overtime hours identifying and correcting issues at the airport, under the assumption that we are traversing through a demanding but transient period. At the end of which, daily business would return to a more manageable tempo. Regrettably, the reality of the matter has proven otherwise.

Collectively, all the issues Assistant Manager Morrison and I have uncovered over the past year are indicative of administrative, fiduciary, and economic decay exceeding anything I’ve previously imagined. There are simply too many challenges to negotiate with the limited staff the airport has available while maintaining any semblance of daily operations.

This has placed me in the untenable position of either choosing between working hundreds of hours of uncompensated overtime, or limiting myself to a 40 hour workweek during which there is not sufficient time, personnel, or resources to prevent or repair systemic failures. All this has culminated in a stressful work environment, which has taken a tremendous toll on myself and assistant manager Morrison, who submitted her resignation earlier today.

Although these issues have remained largely out of the public eye, there are problems that I have routinely brought to the attention of the Airport Advisory Board over the past year. A group whose explicit job is to advise this body about affairs at the airport. With the notable exceptions of Commissioners (Matt) Jensen and (Kelli) van Ginhoven, who joined the Airport Board only a few short months ago, my concerns have largely gone unaddressed and unacknowledged.

For all these reasons, I am tendering my own letter of resignation. In the interest of facilitating a smooth transition of leadership, however, I am making my resignation effective approximately three months from today, with my last anticipated day of work being Feb. 7. I shared with Administrator (Ashleigh) Young that I am also willing to step down from my full time salary position to that of a part time trainer or advisor in order to help acclimate my future replacement to his or her new position.

All of my plans, however, will be contingent upon future work opportunities that may require me to quit my position prior to next February. In the event such a development occurs, I will notify the administrator immediately and provide a minimum of two weeks notice. Additionally, at any point between now and February, if Administrator Young, the County Board of Commissioners, or the Airport Advisory Board feel my services are no longer needed, I am prepared to submit two weeks notice effective immediately.

With everything else said, I think it’s important to manage expectations moving forward. As I have repeatedly advised the Airport Board on numerous occasions, the Airport Administration Office is already struggling to keep pace with our daily and long term commitments. Managing anything other than routine tasks following the assistant manager’s upcoming departure will be virtually impossible.

Consequently, I anticipate several previously restored programs and processes once again falling to the wayside. Administrator Young and I are already working toward mitigating these problems, but certain program failures will prove unavoidable until a replacement manager, until a replacement manager is hired and provided sufficient staffing and resources.

It has been a tremendous honor and privilege serving as your airport manager and working for the people of Delta County. I am thankful for the opportunity to have served our community and will do everything in my limited amount of time I have left at the airport to ensure its future success.

Thank you.