March 16, 2025

Fly me to the world

New Customs office eases international travel at Northern Colorado airport

Customs officer Charles Crosswait checks for radiation at the door of a corporate jet in the Discovery Air hangar.
Customs officer Charles Crosswait checks for radiation at the door of a corporate jet in the Discovery Air hangar. Dallas Heltzell/BizWest.
By

LOVELAND — It’s Northern Colorado Regional Airport now, but how does “Northern Colorado International Airport” sound?

“I don’t know why it’s not that already,” said Scott Holst, general manager of Discovery Air, the aviation complex built and owned by Windsor-based developer Martin Lind at the airport in east Loveland. “We’ve been slowly calling it NCIA.”

To earn the “international” designation, Holst said, “I think the only thing that’s required is to have a U.S. Customs office and a runway that can handle international flights. I don’t know that there’s any other requirements.

SPONSORED CONTENT

“In fact, it should be Northern Colorado International Airport now,” he said. “It should be in a renaming process already” with the Federal Aviation Administration. “One of the things that’s kept everybody from running with it right away is that there’s a bit of a paperwork process with the FAA for changing an airport’s name. It needs to be redesignated in an official way, probably through airport management and the FAA.”

Lind agreed, adding that “it would just take the political will to do it. But heck, it’s been granted. Any airport that has a Customs office is technically an international airport.”

Whether you call it NCRA or NCIA, the runway is there, the private air traffic to and from other countries is there, and, thanks to Lind, the Customs office is up and running.

Lind had applied for and in 2022 won federal approval to locate the office at the airport, which is jointly owned by the cities of Loveland and Fort Collins, so fliers traveling to and from Canada and other international destinations wouldn’t have to go to airports in Broomfield or Casper, Wyoming, to be processed through Customs. He then asked the airport’s governing commission for $200,000 annually to operate the office, but was turned down because that panel said its priority was to build a new terminal in hopes of winning the return of scheduled airline service. So instead, Lind worked out an incentive agreement with the City of Loveland to finance and staff the office at Discovery Air.

The Customs office underwent a test run last May, involving a Gulfstream 550 aircraft with Canadian passengers that was arriving from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The final step was recruiting a full-time Customs and Border Patrol officer. That job was filled in August by Charles Crosswait. Born in Kentucky and raised in Texas, Crosswait joined the Border Patrol in Lordsburg, New Mexico, just after college, then joined the Office of Field Operations in Seattle, where he joined the enforcement team, dealing with illegal drugs and human trafficking. He eventually nabbed a job at Denver International Airport for a year to be closer to some of his family members, then applied for the open position at Northern Colorado Regional Airport and won the job.

At a Customs office the size and designation of Loveland’s, Crosswait has several jobs. His primary role is checking aircraft that leave for and return from international destinations.

Several large companies in Northern Colorado have corporate jets housed at the airport, some in Discovery Air’s cavernous hangar. Holst said that hangar accounts for more than half the airport’s total fuel flowage.

Sean Rogers, president of Hillside Construction Inc. in Fort Collins, hands a .12-gauge shotgun to Customs officer Charles Crosswait. Rogers often flies to Canada to hunt whitetail deer and waterfowl.
Sean Rogers, president of Hillside Construction Inc. in Fort Collins, hands a .12-gauge shotgun to Customs officer Charles Crosswait. Rogers often flies to Canada to hunt whitetail deer and waterfowl. Dallas Heltzell/BizWest.

“These jets fly a lot,” Holst said. “They all fly internationally, some more than others. One aircraft that’s here recently came back from Greenland. They go to Afghanistan and UAE (the United Arab Emirates). Mexico’s common, Canada’s very common.”

In peak season, Holst said, four or five international flights use the airport a week, “and that will dramatically increase with NetJet.”

When a plane leaves the airport for an international destination, Crosswait merely has to log it and doesn’t even have to be physically there to see it. When it returns, however, he can do a lot of systems checks even before it lands.

Holst said a pilot intending to use Customs services at Northern Colorado Regional Airport first goes online to the CBP website, finds the identifier for the local office, and notifies it of when they plan to arrive.

When it lands and taxis to an apron, Crosswait physically inspects it. He takes a lap around the aircraft while monitoring a radiation-detecting device that can spot isotopes, then boards the plane to check passengers’ passports and other documentation as well as the passenger manifest and decals the plane’s owner is required to obtain and affix for international travel.

He even inspects the craft’s trash receptacles.

Crosswait has other duties as well. As one would expect when the federal government is involved, there are forms to fill out, and Crosswait routinely handles several of them at the Discovery Air Customs office.

  • There’s a Form I-94 for visitors from abroad.
  • There are immigration forms with errors that need to be corrected, often brought in by international students attending nearby Colorado State University.
  • There’s a Form 4455 for equipment a company takes to international destinations and then brings it back.
  • And there’s a Form 4457 for gun registration, largely used by local executives for hunting trips to foreign countries.

When Crosswait checks firearms, Holst said, “it shows that we ran it, it’s safe, and not tied to any criminal activity. It’s good for about a year.”

Sean Rogers, president of Fort Collins-based Hillside Construction Inc., found that service to be easy and convenient when he brought in a half dozen firearms to be registered. He recently has hunted musk oxen in Greenland, stags and roe deer in Scotland, doves in Uruguay, and geese and whitetail deer in Canada.

“Those Mounties up there are tough,” Rogers said. “They’re the hardest ones.”

But Rogers appreciates the local office and doesn’t mind the paperwork.

“The purpose of that document is to pre-approve your gun to show it’s actually yours,” he said. “That little document says, ‘Hey, guys, I’ve gone through that process,’ and it makes it much easier.

“Typically in the past, we’ve had to go to DIA or Broomfield, make appointments and go through all that,” he said. “So for a Fort Collins guy, it’s extremely time-effective for me. And plus, I don’t have to go through security to get into the airport.”

Customs officer Charles Crosswait registers one of Hillside Construction Inc. president Sean Rogers’ firearms, a Howa 6.5 Grendel deer rifle.
Customs officer Charles Crosswait registers one of Hillside Construction Inc. president Sean Rogers’ firearms, a Howa 6.5 Grendel deer rifle. Dallas Heltzell/BizWest.

Such visits are mostly done by appointment, however, Holst said. “That avoids people just running in with guns, because if they make an appointment, we know when they’re coming and the area can be secured properly.”

The current hours for the Customs office are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and Crosswait can work overtime if a user schedules a visit in advance.

He can also run checks for other airports in the region, such as those in Broomfield, Centennial and Eagle.

“It does provide networking between the Customs officers,” Holst said. “If people are clogged up at the other airports, that networking is bringing the flights here because Officer Crosswait’s now here, so it’s increasing revenue at this airport.”

However, some services that travelers might expect to find at Discovery Air’s Customs office are not offered there.

“We don’t do passports; that’s a State Department job,” Holst said, whereas Customs and Border Protection is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

“We aren’t doing car importations here because we have no way to receive payments.”

The office also doesn’t handle applications for trusted-traveler programs such as TSA PreCheck and Global Entry, which Holst described as “sort of like TSA PreCheck for international travel.”

That program “takes a lot of time, and we don’t have the equipment here to set up for it,” he said. It also would consume so much of Crosswait’s time that should be spent clearing international flights.

“We intend on going that direction. That would be one of the next services we would like to provide,” Holst said. “But we’re so focused on airport flights. With one officer, which is what CBP will provide to us right now with this size of an office that is not sponsored by the cities, by a government entity, we’re a bit limited.

“So again, if it was to expand, then we could move into Global Entry probably relatively quickly,” he said. “But you’ve got to take those steps.”

Much of the limits on what the Customs office at Discovery Air can do is based on its status.

“This is a Reimbursable Services Program,” Holst said. “The reimbursable part means the government is being reimbursed for everything. This is a privately owned office; it wasn’t opened by the cities. It had to be opened under some tighter parameters.

“U.S. Customs has no expenses in being here,” he said. “Discovery Air, Martin Lind, pays all the expenses including wages, benefits, facility, everything. That’s why it’s called reimbursable: any expense from a pencil to labor and benefits, all the way through.”

All charges for services are billed by Discovery Air, at industry-standard rates, he said.

Referring to Fort Collins and Loveland, which jointly own the airport, Holst was blunt.

“The cities probably should have opened a U.S. Customs office for the community in this area, but it kind of wasn’t going in that direction,” he said. “Martin Lind realized the added value for the community and the families and businesses in this area to get a Customs office open as soon as possible, and in particular the value to the airport. So that’s why we went ahead and fronted opening this up, but that’s kept us on a little bit narrower path as far as the services that are available.

“If the cities do decide to take the office over, which they could do, it could turn into a User Fee Facility, which would be a normal, government-sponsored Customs facility,” he said. “And then, Officer Crosswait, probably with another officer or two added, could move into full offerings. But those are the steps that need to take place to get to that point.

“The cities would have to supply an approved office for the CBP to be in,” Holst said. “We can provide that here. It’s already built. Or, in theory, if the city wanted to put a different office down here on the airport somewhere, they certainly could, but we’re obviously in a position to provide that, too. On the Discovery Air campus, we have plenty of space, and Martin would always be more than happy to coordinate with the cities on more space for Customs.”

Such an expansion would add to the airport’s revenue as well, he said.

“The hardest part is getting charters to use it for the first time. After that, they realize the convenience and how easy it is, and then people start purposely flying out of this airport,” Holst said. “So as we expand Customs, and hopefully the cities get involved and maybe even take over this office and expand it even more, it’s going to bring a ton of business to this airport and to the businesses around this area because they no longer have to go so far to utilize Customs services.”

Exterior of Customs office.
The Discovery Air campus has added a designated entrance for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office at Northern Colorado Regional Airport. Dallas Heltzell/BizWest.

Developer Martin Lind had applied for and in 2022 won federal approval to locate a U.S. Customs office at the Northern Colorado Regional Airport, which is jointly owned by the cities of Loveland and Fort Collins.

Related Posts

With BizWest since 2012 and in Colorado since 1979, Dallas worked at the Longmont Times-Call, Colorado Springs Gazette, Denver Post and Public News Service. A Missouri native and Mizzou School of Journalism grad, Dallas started as a sports writer and outdoor columnist at the St. Charles (Mo.) Banner-News, then went to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch before fleeing the heat and humidity for the Rockies. He especially loves covering our mountain communities.
Categories: Aviation BizWest Cover Story Fort Collins Loveland Today's News Northern Colorado Regional Airport U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Sign up for BizWest Daily Alerts
Closing in 8 seconds...