Dominique Ranieri has always been driven, using hard work and determination to accomplish whatever she set her mind on. It’s what allowed her to graduate both high school and college at the age of 18 and earn a law degree at age 21. Now, she’s using that same drive to lead West Virginia’s largest commercial airport and usher the 79-year-old facility into a new age of aviation.
Ranieri is the airport director and CEO of West Virginia International Yeager Airport (CRW) in Charleston, managing a $13.7 million operating budget, leading a staff of more than 100 employees and directing daily operations that generate an estimated annual economic impact of $225 million for the state. Ranieri is the first woman to lead CRW — a distinction she is proud to carry, even though it was not something she ever dreamed of doing.
“It was never something that was on my radar,” Ranieri said. “I had never thought that I would be running the airport here in West Virginia. I just got involved with it and realized that there’s such an incredible team here. I love working with them and doing what we can to have a part in the future of West Virginia and making our state an even better place to live.”
Ranieri comes from an aviation family — her father was a licensed pilot, her mother was a Delta flight attendant and her sister Angeline is an airport consultant married to an air traffic controller — but her dream was to be an attorney. Florida Atlantic University High School allowed Ranieri to earn her high school diploma and a bachelor’s degree simultaneously, an accomplishment that saw her featured in the Palm Beach Post under the headline, “Think you’re busy? 18-year-old FAU student earned her college degree, high school diploma at the same time.” She then enrolled at Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, about 150 miles from Charleston.
“It was the best thing that could have happened,” Ranieri said. “I loved my time there.”
After law school, she joined the Charleston office of Steptoe & Johnson. Wanting to experience more litigation work, she moved to the Lewis Brisbois law firm, where she had the opportunity to connect with the team at CRW, who asked her to come on board.
“The team at the time said, ‘You know airport words and you know a little bit about aviation. You’re sending us emails at 2:30 in the morning. Why not come work a little bit of a different schedule up here at the airport?’” Ranieri recalled. “And that’s how I joined the team.”
Ranieri joined CRW in 2017 as the director of marketing and air service development, then moved up to assistant airport director and chief operating officer before being named CEO in 2022. Under her leadership, CRW has added new airline routes, strengthened its economic profile and emerged as a vital transportation gateway for the state of West Virginia.
“Air service is a critical component of quality of life and an important piece of a vibrant economy,” said Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber. “Dominique’s leadership at CRW, as well as her statewide profile and civic involvement in her community, have been strong assets throughout the state and our entire region.”
Since 2022 Ranieri has received a bevy of awards and honors for her collaborative leadership style, her ability to build effective public-private partnerships and her forward-thinking approach to air service. She is currently leading CRW Next, a modernization project poised to not only elevate the passenger experience at CRW but also position the airport for future growth.
“We’re an 80-year-old building as of next year, and the terminal was definitely built for a different age of aviation and different age of traveler,” Ranieri explained. “We need to make some improvements to make it friendly and welcoming to all of our passengers.”
A three-phase project, CRW Next is currently in phase two, which includes updating the ticket lobby and enhancing additional aspects of the pre-security areas like lighting and flooring.
“Passengers just want it to be easy and have that amazing travel experience,” Ranieri said. “But there’s so much more that goes into it, even down to the materials that we’re picking.”
All the updates are being made with the passenger experience in mind, but Ranieri said the improvements also benefit CRW’s airline partners, making the terminal more efficient and flexible, which could encourage partners to add additional flights and frequencies.
Plans call for phase two to be completed in 2027. Phase three, the largest phase, includes expanding the post-security area and enlarging the gates to accommodate additional larger aircraft at CRW. After the terminal receives all of its improvements, the airport team will move onto other projects, like updating the nearly 80-year-old air traffic control tower — the oldest in the country.
“For every single company looking to locate anywhere in the country, air travel is always what they want to know about,” Ranieri said. “They want to know what our routes are and what the ease of doing business is in our state. And air service is crucial to that.”
Ranieri said businesses are also interested in quality of life for their employees.
“We want to make sure that we’re attracting people to live in West Virginia and say, ‘It’s easy to live here and it’s easy to travel from here,’” she said. “That’s why we are doing everything we can at CRW to prepare us for expansion and the future of aviation.”
Part of preparing for the future is getting ready for the next big thing in aviation: electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. CRW is partnering with BETA Technologies to install the eVTOL charging infrastructure.
“West Virginia wants to be on the leading edge of eVTOL aircraft,” Ranieri said. “We know if we build out the infrastructure for them, they’ll come.”
She said eVTOL aviation companies are excited about the infrastructure developing in West Virginia because the airspace is not as constrained as it is in major metropolitan areas. The eVTOL aircraft are also perfectly suited for the shorter flights that CRW passengers have been asking for, like flights to Martinsburg or Morgantown, she noted.
“Those hops are just too short for the aircraft that are operated by airlines today,” she said. “But we know these eVTOL aircraft would be perfect for those types of short hops that make getting around our beautiful Mountain State much easier. That’s another reason that we really want to attract eVTOL operators here.”
While Ranieri is proud of her work at the airport, she said she is equally proud of her family. Her husband Brace Mullett, a West Virginia native from Boone County, is the executive vice president and chief legal officer at City Holding Company and City National Bank. The couple have two sons — Brace Mullett, 23, is teaching science at an innovation charter school in Indianapolis and Daly Mullett, 21, is a junior at WVU.
In addition to work and her family, Ranieri said it’s important to her to also find time to serve her community. She’s a member of the West Virginia Consolidated Public Retirement Board and represents the airport on the boards for both the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau and Kanawha Valley Tourism. She also works with Advantage Valley and a local garden club for Charleston beautification. In addition, Ranieri said she is committed to mentoring the next generation of aviation professionals and teaches courses at the Marshall University Bill Noe Flight School.
It’s that love of community that has kept the South Florida native in West Virginia.
“I love the people here. That’s absolutely what made me fall in love with West Virginia and this part of the country,” she said. “People are definitely figuring out that not only do we have this beautiful state with this amazing natural terrain, but we also have the best people.”
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Angela Henderson Bentley is a freelance writer living in South Shore, Kentucky.