Aspen airport director announces his departure
After serving the Roaring Fork Valley for over three years, Dan Bartholomew will head to Oregon
Pitkin County/Courtesy photo
No joke from this office jester.
Aspen/Pitkin County Airport Director Dan Bartholomew, 55, was dead serious when he announced his resignation on Thursday.
“This has to be a joke,” Deputy Airport Director Diane Jackson said of Bartholomew’s announcement. “He’s teasing me that he’s leaving because I truly was just as surprised as everyone.”
Jokes aside, his resignation as director will be effective April 5, according to Pitkin County. He will, however, be kept on after as a contract worker for the upper valley’s airport.
Jackson, 46, coming to the Aspen airport in 2022 and before that working many years for airports in Connecticut, is slated to replace him as interim director.
Bartholomew — who in addition to his well-known dry humor can be found unraveling large blueprints and maps across the conference room table in the portable office next to arrivals — told The Aspen Times on Thursday he’s leaving his position to be with his wife in Portland, Oregon.
“It’s purely for family reasons,” he said.
He became Aspen airport director in 2021 after running an airport consulting business in Oregon. He also held positions at airports in Reno, Nevada, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Bartholomew has led the airport through significant advancements, including the adoption of a community-driven Airport Layout Plan, a new 30-year Fixed Base Operator lease, and the introduction of sustainability initiatives such as electric vehicle integration and enhanced noise and emissions reduction programs, according to Pitkin County news release.
“Under his leadership, the airport also expanded commercial air service, bringing new flight options through three major airlines and overseeing the introduction of the E-175 aircraft,” the release states.
The Madison, Wisconsin, native spoke to facilitating the Airport Layout Plan, a highly contentious effort to expand the runway. After participating in many community discussions and planning sessions, he saw a public vote in November 2024 favor the airport board retaining autonomy over all actions related to runway issues.
A broad community outreach effort will kick off this year as the project to build a new terminal begins, and the work of upgrading a Federal Aviation Administration-compliant runway moves ahead with voter support, the county said.
Bartholomew, of course, will not be here when the spade for runway expansion breaks ground.
“It’s always nice to get over that hurdle and then see the actual implementation of things,” he said. “But with airports, good or bad, things never really end. No matter when you end up departing from a position, there’s always something you’re not going to be involved in at some point.”
Jackson, originally from Minneapolis, spent nearly 20 years working in the Northeast prior to moving to Aspen. She served as Tweed-New Haven Airport manager and Naples Municipal Airport communications director.
“Diane has impressed me significantly in the two years that she’s been here,” Bartholomew said of her. “She was an airport manager back in Connecticut for some time, so she has experience dealing with airfield projects and airports and airport management. She has a very strong airport operations, security, and firefighting background.”
“So from the day-to-day operations, absolutely, she is an incredibly strong candidate,” he added. “She just has the right personality to run an operation like this.”
Jackson said she’s honored and excited to step up, but “the whole team is going to really miss Dan.”
“I was truly blessed to work with him,” she said of Bartholomew. “He’s probably been one of the best directors I’ve ever worked for, so I think we’re all just trying to grasp that he’s leaving us.”
She also said the most important thing for her once she assumes the role “is the team here at the airport.”
“Dan has built such a wonderful team here, and it’s most important for me to keep that continuity going,” she said. “I wouldn’t be anything without them.”
Pitkin County Manager Jon Peacock also emphasized Bartholomew’s involvement in the airport layout plan, saying he did an excellent job communicating to the community what were complex, regulatory and project details.
Peacock also said he’s really going to miss Bartholomew’s dry sense of humor.
“I enjoyed every meeting,” Peacock said. “He would slip something in that would make me laugh, and I think he did that for the community, too, even in the most challenging or tense conversations.”
As he looks back on operating an airport with 42 county employees and many more under the oversight of the Transportation Security Administration and major private and public airline companies, there’s one thing Bartholomew will truly miss: his colleagues.
“The team out here is like a second family. It really is,” he said. “Not only the team at the airport, but the county staff in general, all the way up through the administration, and even the BOCC. … You don’t run across the kind of people you do here in most places. That’s definitely what I’m gonna miss.”
Ray K. Erku can be reached at (970) 429-9120 or rerku@aspentimes.com.
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