Vancouver airport’s CEO announces retirement

Craig Richmond, president and CEO of the Vancouver Airport Authority, said he plans to retire on June 30 after nearly seven years at the helm of one of the country’s busiest airports. The airport plans to hire a global search firm to recruit a replacement.

“I have so much pride in what we’ve accomplished together,” Richmond said in a statement. “We grew passenger volumes by 50%, we embarked on the most ambitious capital plan in the airport’s history, we created meaningful partnerships within the community.”

He hailed the “exceptional team” at the airport, where he estimated that about 26,500 employees work, and said that he knows that he is leaving the airport in “steady, courageous and creative hands.”

The high-pressure life of an executive was almost not his calling, given that his original plan was to be a military man.

In the 1980s, he spent five and a half years in West Germany as part of the Canadian Air Force, working with NATO troops and flying F-104s and F-18s to prepare for a potential Soviet strike.

He completed a BA and an MBA at the University of Manitoba and found a temporary post as a consultant at the airport. Then came a job as manager of airside operations.

After Larry Berg replaced David Emerson as airport CEO, in 1998, Berg gave the then-37-year-old Richmond his first executive role: vice-president of operations.

Richmond left Vancouver in 2006 to become CEO of the Nassau Airport Development Co. in the Bahamas.

Four years later, he became CEO of three airports in England: Liverpool John Lennon, Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield and Durham Tees Valley. In early 2013, he became CEO of Larnaka International and Pafos International airports in Cyprus. He then settled into his post at Vancouver International Airport in September 2013.