Larry Krauter departs as Spokane Airport CEO

Larry Krauter, the architect of much of Spokane International Airport’s recent expansion efforts, is leaving the role of Spokane Airports CEO to take a similar job in Cincinnati.

Krauter, who also oversaw operations of Felts Field and Spokane Airport Business Park, has held the job of CEO since he was hired in 2011. Spokane Airport Board Chairman Ezra Eckhardt, who is also president and CEO of STCU, said in a news release that the board will soon begin the process of finding his replacement.

“Larry has been an incredible leader of the operation over the past 14 years, managing our airports successfully through eras of unprecedented challenge, growth, and expansion,” Eckhardt said in the release. “He has made a tremendous and lasting impact on our region. The Airport Board will work on an immediate and long-term transition plan to identify a new CEO to continue the momentum and impacts of Spokane International Airport, Felts Field, and the Airport Business Park.”

The airport is jointly owned by the city of Spokane and Spokane County. City Council President Betsy Wilkerson, who sits on the board, said she learned that Krauter has accepted the job as CEO of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, located across the Ohio River from Cincinnati in Hebron, Kentucky.

Wilkerson, who joined the board this year, had only good things to say about Krauter’s leadership.

“He’s been an incredible leader,” Wilkerson said. “Larry has implemented so much expansion and growth. There’s an amazing team out there.”

The announcement did not indicate how long Krauter would stay or whether his departure is immediate. The next Airport Board meeting is scheduled for Nov. 21.

“To bring in a new leader to continue the work of expansion and progress, I think, will be a challenge,” Wilkerson said. “Most airport CEOs don’t stay as long as Larry has. I think he stayed round to get his vision off the ground. It’s an exciting chapter for Larry, and it will be an exciting chapter for us, as well.”

The board is expected to begin the process of searching for his replacement as soon as possible, she said.

According to previous interviews, the airport under Krauter’s leadership added several nonstop routes from Spokane, started several terminal upgrades, added more parking and built a 1-mile rail line connecting the existing Geiger Spur line to the airport property.

The Terminal Renovation and Expansion Project – called TREX – added a centralized security checkpoint, expanded baggage claim area and more gates to improve passenger flow at the airport.

“It’s part of a bigger strategy to harness the power of the airport to become an incredibly productive and significant economic engine way more than what we are talking about today,” Krauter said in 2019. “That’s what excites me. Those are the things that I get excited about and work on every day. The other thing is, I get to do it with the people I work with.”

Krauter, originally from Ohio, said in that same 2019 interview that he became interested in aviation as a child.

“My father traveled quite a lot for work, and I would go with my mother to see him off at the airport, or sometimes we would travel with him,” Krauter said. “I can remember being very young, maybe 4 or 5 years old, and being taken up into the cockpit of an Eastern Airlines 727, meeting the pilots and getting my plastic wings. I think from that very early point, I was very attracted to airports and aviation.”

Krauter graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aviation management from Ohio State University. He began a career in aviation as an airport planner for the city of Columbus, Ohio, after working for the Ohio Department of Transportation on bridge and airport projects.

Krauter also held multiple executive positions with the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority in Pennsylvania.

“My desire was to combine my interests in aviation and airports with my interest in training and planning, but also a desire to work in public service,” Krauter said. “If you look at airports, it’s a place where all of those things come together. For me, it was a very natural progression from those early years in my childhood to move in that direction towards a career in airport management.”

While in Pennsylvania, a recruiter contacted him about the CEO post at Spokane International Airport.

“As I did my research on the airport, I got very energized,” Krauter said. “I just was very excited about the upside I saw in the research I was doing, and the fact that it was an airport system with a commercial service and a general aviation airport, because that was the structure I was used to working in.”

Krauter was chosen out of 40 applicants nationwide to oversee Spokane International Airport operations.

Wilkerson, the City Council president, said she expects the board will again hire an agency to find Krauter’s replacement.

“I have only been on the airport board just since this year. I can only say there is a lot to running an airport,” she said. “Larry has done great to shepherd us through that. He’s done an excellent job.”