Clark County’s top airport official shares one of her worst days on the job

Nearly 24 years to the day after one of Rosemary Vassiliadis’ worst days on the job as an airport executive, the longtime director of the Clark County Department of Aviation has retired.

Vassiliadis, 68, the first woman to fill the Clark County aviation director’s role, was overseeing what was then McCarran International Airport on Sept. 11, 2001, while Aviation Director Randy Walker was out of town.

It was on that day that four commercial airliners were hijacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists from two East Coast airports and deliberately crashed into three buildings, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Minutes after planes hit New York’s two World Trade Center skyscrapers and the Pentagon in Washington D.C., U.S. airspace was shut down and Vassiliadis directed the local closure that ultimately stranded thousands of tourists in the city. Days later, McCarran was the first major U.S. airport to reopen after the disaster.

As has been her practice throughout her career, Vassiliadis credited her aviation team for doing what was necessary to help the city through the crisis.

She’ll miss the team

That team, she said, is what she will miss most as she and her husband, the owner of advertising agency R&R Partners, tackle what’s next in their lives. Billy Vassiliadis announced earlier this year that he is stepping away from day-to-day activities at R&R.

“I am most proud of how this airport team, our family here, has grown and evolved with all the different types of growth and transformation that Southern Nevada has had,” Rosemary Vassiliadis said in a recent interview.

“They are phenomenal. They keep me energized,” she said. “When I see what they put into their workday, no matter if it’s front line or back of the shop, it’s just important to keep everything running.”

Through her 28-year airport career — 12 as director — Vassiliadis has seen a major transformation of the city and how the airport, now known as Harry Reid International, serves it.

“(Travelers) were mostly here for leisure, and we were very dependent on that for gambling purposes,” she said. “And it just kept on growing to become the entertainment capital of the world when we introduced unbelievable residencies here in town and to renowned chefs, opening up restaurants, and getting a higher level of visitor. Then, we became the sports arena of the world and all of them (visitors) have different behaviors. We have to adapt to what our customer is and what they want.”

That has meant paying close attention to general aviation needs and all the private aircraft that fly in for special events like Formula One races and the Super Bowl as well as Reid. That has meant considering needs at Henderson Executive Airport and North Las Vegas Airport in addition to everything involving Reid, which ranks as eighth busiest airport in the country.

167 nonstop destinations

While the number of available seats into and out of Las Vegas is shrinking this year, under Vassiliadis’ watch the number of nonstop destinations to and from Las Vegas has expanded to 167 on 32 airlines.

While Vassiliadis won’t be in a leadcrship role in the months and years ahead, she has every confidence in her successor, James Chrisley.

A nine-year deputy director to Vassiliadis and a former squadron commander at Nellis and Creech air force bases, Chrisley was formally appointed the new director by the Clark County Commission on Aug. 19 and took over for Vassiliadis on Friday.

The most immediate project is a multimillion-dollar renovation effort that will expand Reid from 39 to 65 gates and redesign road connections between the two airport terminals. The renovation is designed to keep the airport’s capacity stable until the new Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport in the Ivanpah Valley south of Las Vegas is completed in 2037.

“My bailiwick on the Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport was getting it on the docket, getting it to be real,” Vassiliadis said. “It’s had a long history and we re-did every single study. We were responsible to do a lot of analysis and collect a lot of data for the (Federal Aviation Administration) and (the Bureau of Land Management), our two co-sponsors on this project, to get the environmental impact statement to begin. That was put on the federal docket in May, but the clock is ticking. Now, it goes into Jim’s wheelhouse on how to get all of those pieces together for design. He’s masterful at that because he’s an engineer.”

Over the summer, airport officials, the FAA and the BLM conducted three scoping meetings to prepare for the drafting of the environmental impact statement due in 2027.

The renovation project, meanwhile, is underway and will involve adding a new Terminal 1 wing for new gates that won’t affect airport operations because construction will occur toward the old Terminal 2 site where there’s no aviation activity.

It also will include construction of two off-airport transportation hubs that will accommodate ride-hailing transfers, additional airport parking and, eventually, become a transfer point to shuttle passengers to and from the new airport south of Las Vegas.

Vassiliadis admits she looks forward to how it all turns out — but will be doing so as a spectator.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.