Airport Experience® News - Leadership 2022

EBONI WIMBUSH Q & A

curriculum, culminating with real opportunity and we’re working with our airport members to bring that forward. WARD: AMAC has been doing a lot of career development and professional development work. Will that continue? WIMBUSH: Professional development and the employment side of our mission is important. AMAC is focused on that advancement of women and minorities in contracting and employment. Sometimes we are very entrepreneurial-focused organization but that employment side, that professional development side, is critical and they go hand-in-hand. It takes diversity on both sides. You can’t just have it in contracting, you also have to have it in employment. We need people who are diverse in their thinking to come upwith diverse ways of solving real problems. We have a real problem in this industry with the business model. The only way that we are going to really get to a reimagined business model that works for everybody in the ecosystem is to have a diversity of thought. We know too, people like to work with and people develop relationships with people who are like them. What’s worrisome and what, in particular, our emerging leaders talk about is the bench. It’s a small industry. A lot of people have been here for a long time. Some of those businesses will be legacy [and passed down to the next generation, but for others, there is no one waiting to take over.] That’s why for AMAC, it still is important to focus on new people, whether it’s entrepreneurs to start new businesses or the next airport CEO. I have a vision to expand what we do to reach people who are high school, to expose young people to this wonderful field that we get to wake up in every day. We’re starting with initiatives in local chapters. We are working hard to stand up local chapters in Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington and Chicago, Detroit, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, and Houston. With that, we also hope to bring to life programs like Project Lift and really lean into our strategy of having local impact as well as national impact. WARD: What are AMAC’s legislative and regulatory priorities? WIMBUSH: For 38 years, AMAC members have been advocating to ensure that this program really achieves its goal. What’s laudable for the [Department of Transportation] is that we do believe that the [recently undertaken] review of the program was comprehensive. They spent a great amount of time and are trying to be thoughtful about ways to improve and modernize the program. There’s still work to do on some big issues. Big issue number one is around personal net worth. Though there is the intent to raise it to $1.6 million, and then the proposal calls for it to increase every five years, we know that figure is based on old data from 2019. Given the impact of COVID and the current financial markets, we believe that it should be adjusted upwards by the consumer price index for 2020, 2021 and 2022 to derive a more realistic PNW. One other effort that is notable is that DOT has a proposal related to interstate certification and enhancing certification

reciprocity. We believe that full reciprocity is a must. We agree that reciprocity will reduce burdens for both the certifiers and the ACDBE. There’s a host of other things in the [DOT’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] that we may comment on. Fortunately, we know that the rules will be modernized. Unfortunately, we know that this will just be a step in the right direction. Last but not least is FAA reauthorization. We support a robust industry. One of the big issues will be around PFCs and we believe that PFC should be increased. Collaboration, flexibility, adaptability, resilience - all of those things are critical to our organization, to our members, to this ecosystem. Through FAA reauthorization, I believe we’ll all work together to get to a position that helps the ecosystem. WARD: Are you seeing or advocating for any changes in airport contracting with ACDBE companies? WIMBUSH: Some airports are trying to be creative and supporting minority-owned businesses. Some are examining ways that they can support the issues around access to capital. We’ve seen leadership in looking at ways to have direct leasing opportunities. There definitely is a ‘leaning’ across the country to create opportunities. I don’t want to go as far as to say a trend. We can’t do the same thing we’ve been doing. We have to be creative and we have to really revisit the model. I think the ecosystem will have to continue to lean in on collaboration and partnership. We have two airport CEOs on AMAC’s board: Ricky Smith of [ Baltimore-Washington International Airport ] and Lance Lyttle of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport . They’re revisiting the model. They’re looking at how to reduce costs, how to become more innovative in the way they put out RFPs. They’re assessing what they can do to ensure that what’s within their control supports minority and women-owned businesses. I could name other AMACmembers, but those two are on my board and they are leading the way. They’re focused on a paradigm shift - not just leveling a playing field but looking at ways in which wealth creation can be attained through policy changes and through practices. I’m really proud of their leadership and engagement in our work. Some airports are trying to be creative and supporting minority-owned businesses. Some are examining ways they can support the issues around access to capital.” – Eboni Wimbush, Airport Minority Advisory Council

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