Port authority hires new airport director
By ED RUNYAN
VIENNA
The Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport’s new director has 20 years of airport-administration experience.
The Western Reserve Port Authority on Wednesday hired Daniel Dickten, 56, and he started his duties the same day.
Dickten, properties manager at the Louisville Regional Airport Authority in Kentucky the last two years, also served seven years’ active duty with the Army and 13 years in the Army National Guard.
He will earn $72,500 in the first year of a three-year contract.
Scott Lynn, chairman of the port authority, which runs the airport, said Dickten has the experience, aggressiveness and intelligence to help the airport grow.
“I call him ‘the bulldog,’” Lynn said.
“I’m persistent,” Dickten agreed.
Dickten said he thinks he might be able to attract an airline here that will allow local customers to get to two regional airports such as Washington and Detroit.
Such a carrier will allow local fliers to go anyplace in the world from Vienna.
“I think some niche markets can be created here,” Dickten said. “I’m looking forward to getting the facility to the next level.”
He said air cargo may be the biggest untapped opportunity at the local airport because of current cargo facilities on the western edge of the airport property along Ridge Road and the large population base between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Dickten is a Cincinnati native and served as airport manager at Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport from 1996 to 2004. Lunken is the smaller of the airports in Cincinnati. Lunken serves mostly private and corporate aircraft.
He did get in some hot water there in 2004 over an e-mail that became public, according to an article in The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Dickten wrote an apology to his boss after he sent an e-mail that included graphic language to describe his reaction to a city councilman’s views on airport development, the article said.
Dickten confirmed Wednesday that the incident occurred but said he left “on his own accord” for another job seven months later.
The Vienna airport manager’s job has been vacant since Steve Bowser left for an airport job in Southern California in August. Bowser was due to earn $54,764 in 2010.
A port-authority committee has managed the airport since Bowser left.