Airport Experience® News - ACDBE Issue 2026

LEAVING A LEGACY Gil Johnson Built His Business Through Partnerships. Now He’s Stepping Back To Let Others Shine

Above: Among the concepts operated by Procurement Concepts, in partnership with WHSmith North America, is the Arts District Market at SFO.

BY SARAH BELING

Though Harold “Gil” Johnson has led Procurement Concepts, Inc. (PCI) for more than three decades, it’s not his first career. Prior to founding the concessions firm, Johnson spent over two decades in the electronics industry. “This is a second career for me,” says Johnson, who worked in both the technical and marketing departments of the sector, eventually serving as vice president of sales and marketing for a San Diego-based global electronics company. Johnson was never far from the aviation industry, though. In addition to traveling extensively for work; he studied aeronautical engineering at the Academy of Aeronautics College and electronic engineering at Fairleigh Dickinson University and frequently assisted his wife, Gale, in her procurement and concessions work with HMSHost. “I got tired of traveling all week for work and then coming home and helping her with free intern work,” laughs Johnson, who decided to transition out of the electronics industry and go into business with his wife in 1990 , first operating a gift and news cart at their home airport of

San Diego International Airport (SAN) as a subtenant of HMSHost. “As a sub tenant, you’re responsible for everything,” explains Johnson. “So I got involved in the construction side, the finance side – we had to find the funds to do it [and] we had to find the personnel to help us to create this entity.” Luckily, Johnson’s previous career experience came in handy. “Being in the C-suite taught me a lot about construction and financing, so that transition was relatively easy, because I was used to getting things done, getting things financed, and also managing people and looking for talent and resources,” says Johnson. “You can’t do it all yourself. You have to surround yourself with good, qualified people, get out of their way and let them go do their job,” he adds. PCI not only successfully launched the news and gift cart but expanded its offerings at SAN to include See’s Candies carts, a bookstore, a Hallmark store and several additional travel retail concepts in collaboration with (what was then) Pacific Gateway Concessions . “We ended up with a very diverse product mix,” says Johnson. The team at PCI then focused

Above: Harold “Gil” Johnson has led Procurement Concepts, Inc. (PCI) for more than three decades, with operations in California and Colorado.

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AX NEWS JUNE 2026