Valerie Steele

Valerie Steele brings more than two decades of airport operations, security, emergency management, regulatory compliance, and aviation leadership to Salus Solutions. She spent nearly 15 years at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, serving as an Airport Operations Officer and later Operations Supervisor. Her responsibilities included FAA Part 139 certification and safety requirements, TSA Part 1542 airport-security requirements, airfield and terminal operations, emergency response, and the daily decisions required to keep a major commercial airport safe and operating.

At RDU, Steele worked where airport plans become real operations. She helped manage aircraft emergencies, security breaches, bomb threats, suspicious items, access-control alarms, irregular operations, terminal and aircraft evacuations, shelter-in-place operations, National Disaster Medical System activities, and airport repopulation. She also planned and conducted seminars, tabletop exercises, drills, and full-scale exercises designed to test how airport personnel, police, fire, EMS, airlines, tenants, and government agencies would work together when normal operations failed. Her work included the development and implementation of Airport Emergency Plans, Airport Security Programs, standard operating procedures, rules and regulations, and other airport operating standards.

Steele has also helped develop national airport-security practices. She participated in Salus research teams developing FAA guidance for airports on insider-threat mitigation and active-shooter mitigation and recovery. Her experience spans large commercial airports and general aviation facilities, including Raleigh-Durham International, Jacksonville International, Flagler County Airport, and Mid-Carolina Regional Airport.

Today, Steele serves as Airport and Rowan Transit Director for Mid-Carolina Regional Airport while also serving Salus as a Senior Advisor for airport operations and emergency planning. In 2024, she earned the Accredited Airport Executive designation from the American Association of Airport Executives, becoming the 500th active A.A.E. in the association at that time. She also holds ACE credentials in Airport Operations and Security, is an Airport Security Coordinator, and earned a Master of Science in Management and Leadership from Western Governors University and a Bachelor of Science in Aviation Management from Jacksonville University.

Steele has spent her career preparing airports for the moment when routine operations stop being routine.

Know the airport. Know the regulations. Prepare the people. Manage the emergency. Restore the operation.