Steamboat Springs Airport manager soars into retirement with hopes of finding more sky, skiing

After eight years as manager of the Steamboat Springs Airport, Stacie Fain plans to take off at the end of the month with hopes of checking a few items off her to-do list.

“It’s just been a wonderful job, and I loved it,” said Fain, as she talked about her retirement while sitting in front of large office windows looking out over the Bob Adams Field runway with her dog, Cooper, napping at her feet.

“I’ve loved working with the airport team that we built here, and the city employees are just amazing. We have an amazing group of city employees that work so hard, and I’m just going miss that.”

Fain said she is leaving to pursue a long list of things she couldn’t find time to get to over the last several years. She is hoping to spend a few more days on the ski slopes this winter, to attend a few more Sunday masses at church and to spend a few more hours in the air flying her Cessna 180 Skywagon. She is also hoping to spend more time with her boyfriend.

“I’m looking forward to doing some more trips,” Fain said. “My goal has been to land at all the public-use airports in Colorado. There are 76 of them — two of them are for float planes, and 74 of them are landing strips — and I just have 15 left to go.”

She said she also wants to have more time to garden and learn.

“I like to garden and read,” Fain said. “I want to learn some things that I haven’t had time to learn, maybe relearn the piano, or just spend some more time with friends and family.”

Fain has led the Steamboat Springs Airport for the past eight years.

Fain oversaw the 2022 runway rehabilitation project that allowed the city to redo the entire runway and build a road that enabled the development of a helicopter parking area and helped establish relationships with the Federal Aviation Administration and Colorado Department of Transportation to secure grant funding for various airport improvements.

She also worked to develop an airport master plan that included plans for hangar development, terminal area redesign, and the addition of a self-serve fuel station, while also implementing an airport overlay zone to protect the airport from encroachment and development, which was important for securing FAA and CDOT funding.

She started flying in 1988 and has owned her own plane since 2001.

Prior to coming to Steamboat Springs, Fain was in the Coast Guard for 27 years — including 12 years of active duty and 15 years of reserves.

“I was a pilot in a Jayhawk helicopter, which is the same as a Black Hawk helicopter, and then in the reserves my expertise was called Operations Ashore,” Fain said. “That was mostly responding to manmade and natural disasters.”

She retired from the Coast Guard in 2020 while she was working at the Steamboat Springs Airport.

“I retired from that and have done eight years here, and I am ready to fully retire,” Fain said. “Now I will have some time to do some things that I haven’t had time to do.”

Last week Fain had already started pulling her personal items off the wall, and her staff was preparing to say goodbye to Cooper, who is also the airport dog, when Stacie leaves on Nov. 24.

“She’s been an excellent airport manager. She’s brought in millions of dollars in grants from the state and federal governments and has run the airport professionally and brought it to new levels,” said Steamboat Springs City Manager Gary Suiter. “I thank her for her service … I appreciate everything she’s done for the airport and for the community.”