Friday, May 11, 2007
Pick for airport chief calls LAX a priority
Gina Marie Lindsey
says she will request input from community groups, carriers in remaking the
aging facility.
By Jennifer Oldham
The Los Angeles (CA)
Times
Dodging a queue of several dozen people at the Tom Bradley
International Terminal at LAX on Thursday, Gina Marie Lindsey got an
up-close-and-personal look at the challenges she will face when she takes over
the city's airport agency June 11.
As Lindsey walked briskly past busy ticket
counters, airport officials striding alongside told her about the intractable
issues facing LAX, including cramped, outdated terminals and a lack of parking
spaces for planes.
The aging facilities are prompting some carriers to
take international flights elsewhere, the officials emphasized.
"There's
no question it needs to change," said Lindsey, whom Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
introduced at a news conference Thursday as his pick to lead Los Angeles World
Airports, the agency that operates LAX and facilities in Ontario, Van Nuys and
Palmdale.
The city's Airport Commission unanimously approved Lindsey's
appointment just before the mayor's announcement.
The City Council is
expected to give its required support as well; her salary will be set after she
is confirmed.
Standing in front of the airport's iconic Theme Building,
Los Angeles officials praised Lindsey's aviation industry experience, saying her
achievements in expanding airports in Anchorage and Seattle will serve her well
in her new post.
"It's symbolic that we're standing in front of the Theme
Building, and it's falling apart," said City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, referring
to the stucco that crumbled from its arches recently, forcing the closure of its
restaurant. "This speaks to the job we have to do."
Hahn recited a list
of long-awaited improvements at LAX, including building new aircraft gates on
the back of the Bradley Terminal, where a $725-million renovation began in
February, and a new terminal behind the facility as well.
Villaraigosa
zeroed in on Hahn's earlier statement and sought to correct it.
"The
metaphor is not that it's falling apart," he said of the distinctive Theme
Building structure partially obscured by scaffolding erected for the repair
work. "But that we're putting it back together."
In an exclusive
interview after the news conference, Lindsey said her first priority would be to
craft a plan to modernize aging LAX.
She said she expected her staff to
give her a crash course in the 15-year history of the city's largely stymied
efforts to remake the facility.
She emphasized that she doesn't favor any
particular proposals.
In explaining why she decided to accept what is
possibly the toughest job in the city, she replied: "I like to make a
difference, I like to make things better."
Lindsey said she planned to
meet with community groups — many of whom oppose expanding LAX — and airline
representatives to ask them how they would modernize the world's fifth-busiest
airport.
She also wants to contact carriers right away, in hopes of
settling lawsuits challenging a controversial move by the city's Airport
Commission earlier this year to raise terminal fees.
Lindsey, 53, will
replace Lydia Kennard, who resigned from her second stint as the airport
agency's executive director Jan. 31.
Lindsey, a self-described team
player and people person, was chosen from a field of more than 70
candidates.
The nationally recognized aviation industry insider said that
after Kennard resigned, she received several calls suggesting that she apply for
the job.
As she was considering the position, Villaraigosa phoned her,
and they found they had a mutual vision for the city's airport
agency.
"He's a persuasive guy," she said.
"This seems to be a
somewhat unprecedented time of alignment," she added, referring to the fact that
the mayor, the council and various community groups agree that LAX needs to be
modernized.
Currently an executive vice president at McBee Strategic
Consulting in Washington, D.C., Lindsey spent 11 years as aviation director at
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where she pushed through a $4.1-billion
expansion plan.
She also directed Anchorage International Airport and has
an extensive background in airport planning.
Lindsey received a
bachelor's degree in communications from Walla Walla College in Washington state
in 1976.
Her first airport-related job, in 1981, involved managing
facility development at Anchorage International Airport in Alaska. It proved to
be good preparation for the Seattle-Tacoma job.
Lindsey left her $196,000
position there in 2004 to move to Washington, D.C., when her husband received a
promotion at Carnival Corp.
At the time, she told local news media that
she wanted to leave the area in part because of the unexpected death of her only
child, Tulane University student Jeremy Houk, in 2003.
In her scant free
time, she plays the piano, reads voraciously and cooks.
She said her
husband will remain in Washington, D.C., but plans to visit her in Los Angeles
several weekends a month.