Times Union18%
Authority picks California airport executive to lead Albany International Airport 16%
By Patrick Tine32%
8/3/2026, 2:03:39 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 7 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Optimism Bias, and Anchoring Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 21.4% saturation with 160 hits. Analysis detected 492 faulty-reasoning hits from 749 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 26.2% and a BS Rank of 16% (22,378 of 26,429 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 84.70% of the article peer group.
COLONIE — The Albany County Airport Authority has selected Stephen Clark, an airport executive from California, as the next CEO of Albany International Airport.
Authority board member John-Raphael Pichardo confirmed Monday that Clark had been selected.
The board had met earlier in the day for a special meeting to discuss “a particular person.”
In a statement, the airport authority said Clark and the board are “working together to finalize his start date, which is expected to occur before the end of the summer.”
The airport has been run by its former chief attorney, Peter F.
Stuto, since 2024, when the board fired CEO Phil Calderone in what ultimately became an aborted effort to install Albany County Executive Dan McCoy as airport CEO, a job he’d long coveted.
Clark, 39, comes to Albany having served as the deputy director of commercial airports with the Sacramento County Department of Airports, a municipal authority that oversees four northern California airfields, including Sacramento International Airport.
According to a news release announcing his hiring there in November 2021, Clark had previously served as director of commercial development at Gerald R.
Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Mich.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Clark has also worked for SkyWest Airlines and Delta Airlines.
Clark started work fairly close to the bottom of the aviation industry.
“A lifelong aviation enthusiast, Clark began his career shortly after high school as a baggage handler and ramp agent,” the statement announcing his hiring in Albany said.
“That early experience on the front lines of airport operations helped launch a nearly 20-year career spanning airlines, airports and aviation leadership.”
The statement continued, “Throughout his career, he has helped secure more than 37 new airline routes, negotiated significant aviation infrastructure investments and led commercial initiatives that have strengthened airports as economic engines for their communities.”
“Albany International Airport is one of the Capital Region’s most important public assets, and I am deeply honored to lead it at this pivotal moment,” Clark said in the statement.
“My commitment is to build on its legacy with ambition, discipline and a clear vision for an airport that reflects the strength and potential of the region it serves.”
Calderone, who had previously been McCoy’s deputy county executive, was appointed CEO of the Albany County Airport Authority in December 2019.
He was credited by many colleagues with leading an ongoing transformation of the facility into one of the nation’s top-rated small airports.
But after publicity surfaced about other alleged motives behind his removal, the airport authority board sought to discredit Calderone’s work and subsequently claimed that his leadership of the airport’s ongoing renovation and expansion projects was inferior.
The board’s decision not to renew his contract in the $227,289-a-year job came amid continued delays in an ongoing $100 million airport renovation project, including the reconfiguration of the main terminal.
John W.
Liguori, an attorney for Calderone, had said his client “was shocked and disappointed” at the board’s assertions.
“He was not aware of the issues that they had.
They were never brought to him in any way, shape or form by the board,” Liguori said two years ago.
“He denies the allegations and he considers them false.”
Clark will bring his experience to Albany from Sacramento International Airport, a key gateway to northern California destinations including Yosemite National Park and some of the state’s wine-producing regions.
It is less than 100 miles from the Bay Area and has a far larger scope than Albany International.
It has nonstop flights to multiple East Coast destinations, including Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Miami, as well as international destinations in Canada and Mexico.
It also has four routes to different destinations in Hawaii.
Albany International Airport does not have any international departures or nonstop transcontinental flights.
Clark will take on the new role during a period of changes and challenges for the airport.
The contractor hired to oversee the ongoing renovation of Albany International Airport is suing the airport authority, alleging major design deficiencies that delayed completion of the project by two years and led to millions of dollars in unpaid cost overruns.
The lawsuit, filed last week by MLB Construction Services LLC in state Supreme Court in Albany, seeks at least $12 million in damages, plus interest, from the airport authority.
The legal action comes as airport officials acknowledge the project, once expected to be completed this year, will not be done until sometime in 2027.
Speakers
3speakers28%attributed speech537writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageStephen Clark
59 attributed words28% of attributed speech47% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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