TORRINGTON — The Torrington City Council began its search in December for a new municipal airport manager, shortly after long-time Torrington municipal airport manager Jerry Wright passed away. But qualified applicants for the position don’t just fall out of the sky and Wright left behind some pretty big footprints to follow.
Unlike airports in bigger cities, Torrington doesn’t have much in the way of control tower personnel, grounds crews, fueling attendants, emergency personnel or compliance officers, all of those duties fall on the shoulders of the airport manager, or his part-time assistant manager. Some of those duties, such as handling aviation fuel, require certification by the Federal Aviation Administration. They’ve also been known to run to town and pick up sandwiches or burgers for a hungry pilot and passengers, who are making a quick stop for fuel.
Qualified applicants are few and far between, even in larger markets, but Torrington recently named Fort Laramie resident Mike Salyer as the new municipal airport manager after a search of only a few months.
To be fair, Salyer, who is originally from Virginia, and his family moved to Fort Laramie when he retired after 28 years as commercial pilot.
“I flew with a couple of different airlines, but the last one was American West,” Salyer said. “I was based in Phoenix but we lived in Colorado and I retired early so I could spend more time with my wife and three daughters. As a pilot, I was gone about 20 days a month.”
His move to Fort Laramie, was almost accidental and could be considered providential, for both Salyer and Torrington.
“I was thumbing through an in-flight magazine and there was this ad, “Big Wyoming land for sale,” he explained. “So I tore it out and put it in my pocket.
“Well, I forgot about it but my wife found it when she was doing the laundry and asked about it. One thing led to another and we came to Goshen County to look and wound up buying property at Pine Ridge in 2004. We moved there after I retired in 2012.”

Salyer started flying when he was 19 years old and a friend talked him into taking flying lessons together. After getting their private pilots certificates, the same friend talked him into going to an aviation university in Daytona Beach, Fla.
“My parents weren’t real keen on the idea but they went along with it. University can be between tow and four years, but since I already had a degree I was only there for two years.
“It is a very structured program, but even after graduating from an aviation school it is very hard to get into even a commuter airline job. That usually takes more experience than just school.”
So Salyer moved back to Virginia and worked as a freelance pilot.
“The next five years I farmed myself out to different companies for my pilot services,” he said. “It was great experience, I got to fly a lot of different planes.”
Eventually, that experience landed him a job with a commercial airline, where Salyer spent the next 28 years. Until he retired to Goshen County.
“After retirement, I wanted to keep my hand in aviation, maybe do some freelance flights,” he said, as he explained how his transformation from pilot to airport manager happened. “But about year ago, I decided I wanted to start teaching again. And part of the advantage of the airport manager is you can do that. In fact they were looking for someone who could give lessons.
“But I have to spend some time getting retrained myself. I haven’t been in anything smaller than a 737 for about 30 years.”
As the new airport manager, Salyer sees his job as conducting business as usual; oversee the day-to-day operation, ensure FAA compliance and promote safety. But he is hoping to take his job one step further than “business as usual.”
“I would like to find opportunities in aviation to help promote economic growth in the community. It has been shown that communities without airports are not as economically strong as those that do.
“I hope to look into the possibility of bringing a flight taxi and charter services to the community. And increase our refueling traffic for those flying through the area. We get a lot of visitors on their way to the Oshkosh Fly-In because our fuel prices are the cheapest in the area”
As for any economic possibilities for the airport during the solar eclipse in August, Salyer said they have started fielding calls about the facilities.
“We’ve had calls about the airport and people wanting to make reservations. But right now we don’t know how many planes we can handle safely but we are assessing all the space we have.
“We haven’t charged a fee in the past for planes staying overnight, but it is something we are discussing. But honestly, we don’t know how many people might show up.”