Randall H. Walker, Director of Clark County Department of Aviation

A native Nevadan, Randall H. Walker was born in Boulder City and grew up close by in Henderson, where he still lives today with his family. Walker never dreamed he would one day be the director of the Clark County Department of Aviation and now the key person responsible for the record-breaking growth of the life blood of Las Vegas’ air transportation marvel, McCarran International Airport.

"When I graduated from Basic High School in Henderson, we had only about 18,500 total residents," recalls Walker. "Today, there are close to 300,000. The growth here over the years has just been truly spectacular."

In 1977, Walker earned his B.S. degree in Accounting (Magna Cum Laude) from Brigham Young University. He worked his way up the ranks from budget analyst in the Clark County manager’s office to business manager for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and to the deputy city manager for the City of Las Vegas.

In 1990, Walker became the deputy director for the Clark County Depart-ment of Aviation, and in 1997 was appointed the director of the Clark County Department of Aviation.

"We had about 19 million passengers in 1990 when I started. In 2004, we had 41.5 million," says Walker with pride. "We now have a total of 12,000 employees that work at the airport, a small city in itself. Also, in 2004, we were the sixth busiest airport in terms of passengers in the United States and growing, and we are the 11th busiest airport in the world.

"We tell people to think of the airport as a large mall. We are the landlord. We run about a $300 million per year business. All of our money is self-generated. When I got here in 1990, the airlines generated about 60%. Over the years, we have been very ag-gressive in growing our non-airline revenue. Today, the airlines generate about 40% while the other 60% is generated from all other sources in-cluding rent, advertising, food and beverage, retail, transportation, and slot machines.

"With hotel rooms at about 131,000 rooms here and another 8,500 under construction, things are exploding," Walker states with enthusiasm. "On average, we have about 1,200 take-offs and landings per day at McCarran. We will reach our airport capacity at 53 million travelers."

Record crowds come to Las Vegas each year, the No. 1 travel destination in the U.S., with more than 3.5 million travelers per month. Roughly 50% of Las Vegas visitors travel by air, and the other 50% travel by ground transportation.

"The Las Vegas Visitors and Con-vention Authority has done a great job marketing Las Vegas. As a steward of this great asset, our airport, it is my job to manage it in the best manner possible for our community.

"Truly, I’m most proud of my family, my wife, six children, three of them married, and seven grandkids. Sure, it is hard to balance it all, yet I try to figure out what is most important. It can be done. I think I have earned a good reputation in the community of working hard, by being honest, and being somebody that people can come to and get things done."

The first faces most Vegas visitors see are those of Walker’s dedicated team of thousands. These trained professionals continue to help en-sure safe travel and at the same time perform an excellent job at the primary point of hospitality, McCarran International Airport.

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