The DIA Partnership has chosen a Florida aviation consultant and former airport manager to lead economic-development efforts in the area surrounding Denver International Airport.
Mary Rose Loney will take over as president and chief executive of the DIA Partnership on Nov. 1. She will replace Julie Bender, who announced in May that she would leave the group by year’s end.
“I’ve spent a good part of my airport-management career out West, and my long-term goal has been to return to the West,” Loney said Tuesday. “Everything seemed to come into place with this particular opportunity.”
Loney, 54, came across the DIA Partnership’s advertisement in a trade publication and met with the group’s board while she was in Denver exploring options for relocating her company.
Prior to launching her consulting business in 2000, Loney held management positions at Chicago O’Hare, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth and San Jose international airports.
During her airport-management career, Loney oversaw the implementation of more than $2 billion in major capital development programs.
Loney said she has long admired DIA and looks forward to working with the DIA Partnership’s board to help promote the airport and the region that surrounds it.
“I’ve managed a number of major airports. Denver International’s future is extremely bright,” she said.
Jeff Willis, chairman of the DIA Partnership’s board and an executive vice president at Berkeley Homes, said that while Loney’s résumé is heavy on the airport side of things, her experience in economic development and public policy helped clinch the deal.
The partnership’s search committee received 65 résumés and conducted five phone interviews before bringing in three people for interviews, Willis said.
Since it was formed in 1996, the DIA Partnership has helped shepherd economic development in the area surrounding the airport. The group, composed of both public and private entities, represents an area of 300 square miles that includes parts of Aurora, Brighton, Commerce City and Denver.
Since DIA opened in 1995, the northeast metro area has become the fastest-growing region in the Denver area. The area has 317,700 residents and 184,000 workers. Its annual economic impact of $15 billion is expected to grow to $85 billion by 2025.
One of Loney’s first duties when she starts will be to hire her second in command. DIA Partnership vice president Susan Stanton left the group in August to become Brighton’s director of economic development.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-954-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
