Humboldt County Loses Another Aviation Director — Third in 18 Months
Humboldt County announced the resignation of Aviation Director, Justin Hopman, less than three months after he started the job.
The County of Humboldt announced Thursday that Justin Hopman, C.M., ACE, will resign as Director of Aviation effective March 27 — less than three months after starting the job on January 5. The departure marks the third time in roughly 18 months that the county has lost its top aviation official. What keeps driving experienced professionals away from one of California’s most remote aviation posts?
“After much reflection and discussion with my family, I have made the difficult decision to step away from my role as Humboldt County’s Aviation Director,” Hopman said in a statement released by the county. “The needs and well-being of my family must always take priority. This decision was not easy to make, and I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity that was presented to me.”
Board Chair and Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson offered a measured response: “While this outcome is not what we hoped for, we respect Justin’s decision to prioritize what is best for his family. Aviation continues to be vital to Humboldt’s connectivity and economic growth, and the Board remains committed to supporting the needs of the community and the Aviation Department.”
The county said it will begin searching for a new Aviation Director while the Board investigates the best path forward.
A Pattern of Short Tenures
Hopman’s departure is the latest in a succession of exits that has left the county scrambling to fill the same senior position repeatedly — and largely unsuccessfully — since late 2024.
Cody Roggatz (2018–September 2024): The longest-serving director in the modern era of the department, Roggatz was hired in August 2018 when the county re-established its standalone Aviation Department after decades of aviation being housed within Public Works. He brought more than 13 years of industry experience to the role. But his tenure ended abruptly and under a cloud of mystery. He was last seen publicly at the “Rumble Over the Redwoods” airshow at ACV in August 2024. Following the event, his county email began bouncing back an automated “temporarily unavailable” message. The Aviation Advisory Committee, which had not met since May of that year, reported being completely in the dark. A special closed-session Board meeting that September resulted in a 3–2 vote to “accept the resignation” of Roggatz, effective immediately. No public explanation was ever provided.
Ryan Cooley (June–August 2025): After a protracted search, the county appointed Ryan Cooley as Roggatz’s replacement in early June 2025. A former airport director in Del Norte County, Cooley was praised at his appointment for his experience in coastal and rural aviation environments. He lasted two months and five days. His resignation letter, obtained by the Lost Coast Outpost, read in its entirety: “I, Ryan Cooley, hereby resign my employment as the Humboldt County Director of Aviation, effective immediately.” No further explanation was offered publicly.
Justin Hopman (January–March 2026): Touted as a heavyweight hire, Hopman came to Humboldt County from Florida’s Space Coast, where he had served as Deputy Director of Operations and Maintenance for the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority — a multi-airport system that includes a licensed FAA spaceport. He also held experience at Orlando International and Orlando Executive airports and brought more than 15 years in aviation management. The county used outside executive search firm ADK Consulting & Executive Search to recruit him. Supervisor Wilson celebrated the hire in December 2025, calling Hopman’s “hands-on leadership style and experience managing complex airport systems” a “tremendous asset.”
He began January 5. He will be gone by March 27 — a tenure of less than 12 weeks.
Grand Jury Sounded the Alarm
The revolving door at the top of Humboldt’s Aviation Department did not go unnoticed by watchdogs. In May 2025, the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury released a report titled “Wings Over Humboldt County: Charting a New Course for the Department of Aviation,” written in the wake of Roggatz’s departure and before Cooley’s hiring and subsequent resignation. The report was re-publicized in September 2025 following Cooley’s exit, with the grand jury emphasizing its core recommendation: that the county prioritize hiring managers with “strong backgrounds in airport management.”
The grand jury found that the prolonged vacancy after Roggatz’s departure had real consequences. Time that would otherwise go toward long-range planning and capital projects was instead consumed by required FAA reporting that had piled up. The report noted that in 2018 — the last time aviation had suffered a leadership vacuum — the FAA threatened to seek the return of more than $50 million in grant funding due to severely lacking compliance reports, and cautioned that such a scenario could repeat itself.
The report also flagged longstanding tension between the Aviation Advisory Committee and department leadership. Pilots and general aviation stakeholders reported feeling sidelined, with one committee member saying the department had developed “a vacuum of understanding” and that there had been virtually no communication from leadership in the months before Roggatz’s exit.
Beyond the leadership question, the grand jury and a separate Volaire aviation consulting report both indicated the county faces difficult decisions about several of its six public airports — particularly Murray Field, Kneeland Airport, and Dinsmore Airport, all of which are deteriorating and may eventually require either significant investment or closure.
What’s at Stake
Humboldt County’s aviation system is not merely an administrative concern — it is a lifeline. The region’s geographic isolation makes air travel essential for commerce, medical transport, and basic connectivity to the rest of California and the country. ACV has recently seen airline turbulence of its own: Avelo Airlines ended its service during Cooley’s brief tenure in 2025, though Breeze Airways stepped in within days to cover routes to Burbank and Salt Lake City.
Recruiting for air service is its own challenge. As Cooley noted before his departure, Humboldt County competes against roughly 360 other communities nationwide for low-cost carrier service, often without the multi-million-dollar revenue guarantees that larger markets can offer.
All of this makes stable, experienced leadership at the top of the Aviation Department not a luxury but a necessity. The department’s own interim manager, Airport Operations Manager Curt Eikerman, has repeatedly stepped into the gap during leadership transitions, despite reportedly having no desire for the permanent role. His institutional knowledge has kept operations running, and the grand jury credited department staff for maintaining a smoothly functioning airport even amid the chaos at the top.
No End in Sight — Yet
The county has now spent the majority of the period since September 2024 without a permanent Aviation Director. Between Roggatz’s exit and Hopman’s start in January 2026, the department was without permanent leadership for roughly 16 months. With Hopman’s departure taking effect March 27, that clock will resume.
The county says it will begin a new search immediately. Given the high-profile nature of the prior hire, a credentialed professional with Space Coast experience who expressed genuine enthusiasm for the role, Hopman’s exit will likely prompt difficult internal questions about what the county is offering, what it expects, and whether something structural is making the position untenable for those who take it.
Supervisor Wilson pledged the Board’s continued commitment to aviation. But for a department that has now cycled through three directors in less than two years, commitment may matter less than answers.
For more information on the Humboldt County Department of Aviation, visit FlyACV.com.
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They continue to just fly away. They need to find someone more grounded. Someone who is willing to stay and pilot the operation.
It’s not like this is the only position that Humboldt Co finds impossible to fill- medical doctors, dentists, veterinarians are in short supply too. The inability to recruit professionals is telling. The county population is simply shrinking despite being among the most beautiful places on earth. In a state where the population has grown even though less than the country as a whole. People, especially people with families, don’t want to come here. In fact people with families object to exposing their families to Humboldt Co, routinely giving that as the reason for not taking up work here.
The county should be taking a hard look at itself. It is not a pretty picture. But any look that its officials take doesn’t want to look at why people don’t want to live here. Only on narrow social agendas of those who gain their attention. Then it act if the well being of the majority is the problem they need to address. It is pretty clear that Humboldt Co is the direct opposite of a thriving place.
I can understand the challenges. I was brought into the county from SillyCon Valley for an executive technology role in 2018. I agreed to a five year deal, and stayed 5 1/2. I have family in SoHum since the 80s, so I had a pretty good idea what I was getting myself into. My employer took very good care of me, great outfit with outstanding leadership. And yet, once my project was done and my agreement fulfilled, I left within two weeks.
My biggest problem was lack of medical care – once I hit 70 I understood I could soon need better than what the county could provide. My next biggest challenge was transportation, taking forever to drive anywhere and very little air transport. And finally, as a function of a low population, just not a whole lot to do. It’s easy for me to see how outsiders find themselves challenged once they get here and really understand the area.
I’m not really sure what to suggest. I’m aware of behind-the-scenes efforts to improve the medical situation, but they are fighting the same battle trying to get doctors to move here. The transportation challenges might not be quite as daunting to someone younger. Folks from smaller towns might not see the same lack of activities that I did. One thing that could be done is a serious effort to encourage the best and brightest from CPH to stay in the area after graduation. Y’all really need to work on retaining home-grown talent.
I don’t think transportation among professionals is that much of a challenge. Medical care? Well maybe to older professionals. But what really causes people to avoid Humboldt is all the ills of a society that doesn’t work. Literally doesn’t value work. Low income, abundance of drug addiction and crime, of disrespect for law and order as principle, scarce resources for common needs, politics that always devolves into a battle between haves and have nots. It matters not at all who pays for a service if there is no service to be bought.
Meanwhile the BOS worries about sanctuary declarations when an emergency veterinarian can’t be found for a dying animal. Or people have to drive fours hours to see a dentist. There is a serious disconnect going on here about basic requirements that makes a good place to live.
I’ve been saying that for years. We’ll never reach real independence beyond minimum wage jobs and everyone else on social services without a handful of larger industries and double the population. We’ve been an extraction-based, boom-bust economy since wooden masted ships were built along the bay. However, there are more than a few people that prefer things that way; live in their own swamps. Becoming the next Santa Rosa doesn’t thrill me either but if no one has much disposable income to dump into the local economy, nobody stays in in business long either. I can’t spend money at farmers markets and support artists, musicians or buy nice bicycle or a kayak if I don’t have any to spend.
Hate to say it, just as I posted in December. Need to hire local.
You are way out there, and that’s where you are at…
Humboldt’s incompetent and extremely corrupt Government Agencies probably continue to exert the “revolving door effect of work in Humboldt”…
People come, people go: It isn’t Santa Barbara…
Humboldt has little appeal, career-wise, and it’s not the place – it’s the people and the distance from civilization…
Even only “moderately remote” locations have problems staffing official and professional positions, and there is a wave of layoffs, downsizings and shuffling going on in Managerial and Staff positions in Northern CA…
Stop lying to yourselves and double the Salary…
Well this is a big red flag. Something is wrong with this county. Is it low pay? To much government paperwork? Good ol boys running things? I just know that it is a fucking expensive place to park a car at ACV. You feel like you are at SFO.
Ecotopia syndrome. Your not welcome in Humboldt anymore unless your one of them.
Humboldt may be parochial but that doesn’t mean they oppose newcomers. It’s just as a newcomer you need to make your own social milieu. You can’t use theirs except at the fringes.
But that’s true of most places that are not big nor vibrantly expanding. This has it’s benefits in that people who stay here tend to like keeping expansion at bay even when they themselves are part of an expansion. That doesn’t excuse the lack of incentive among the parochial themselves to become doctors or dentists or veterinarians or whatever. Those people who do leave the place to gain education frequently don’t want to come back either..
High attrition goes back 30 years.
To the Redwood Park Expansion Program at the end of the 1970s actually. More like 50 years back. Jobs evaporated never to be replaced. It had a population rebound in 2010 and 2014 on expectations of an economic rebound but neither lasted long. Humboldt Co is a good place to be poor but not a good place to stop being poor.
Many factors i am sure. The challenges
1.pay
2 lack of good medical care available
3 lack of shopping etc for many families used to larger areas
4 crime
5drugs
6 crime
7 the county fathers probaly want to micromanage and run things insted of get things done
This is just another symptom of the decades 50 plus yeas of mismanagement by the county.
Humboldt is in a death spiral and going to be like many parts of the south where there is no future for most of the young folks.
Cooley came from Del Norte I think and Roggatz from a place about the size of Eureka. They knew the pay. It’s not likely that they were surprised by those things on your list.
Crap, I totally agree with your comment. The death spiral will continue until all your valid points are removed from our area. Number 7 rings a bell for me.
IMHO:
Excess population versus the amount of ‘productive work’ available.
Same thing as ‘most’ of the USA. Politicians are busy shoveling ‘FIAT’ (imaginary) money into the population… (grants, non-profits etc). They are trying to keep the masses ‘at bay’.
Right now, the bottom of the ‘bag of money’ is clearly visible.
Politicos will continue to increase taxes (upcoming measure ‘Double-O’) until the taxpayers money runs out.. (ala… declining sales tax money).
Then.. economic collapse… followed by…
The County needs to pay for an independent, external audit of this position, the job duties, who they report to and what the challenges are. I am guessing at the very least, there needs to be a Deputy Director position added to manage workload.
For what the director is paid and with access to flights, the typical excuses of no shopping and nothing to do are laughable. I have a list of grievances with our local medical care, but I am also pro-active about going to the Bay for specialists – and I don’t make nearly what this position pays.
It’s no coincidence that two of the three directors bailed right after Rumble in the Redwoods – what about that made them immediately quit? Who is benefitting from not supporting the directors?