2019 Airport Business Top 40 Under 40: Justin E. Lobb, CPM, ACE

Justin Lobb was always interested in aviation as a child. He was fascinated by aircraft and wanted to be a pilot.

But when Lobb was in college, he joined College Business Aviation Executives and they took a group tour of Miami International Airport (MIA). He was fascinated by all the intricacies of the operations and the energy of the facility.

“Being in the aviation industry, there’s definitely the excitement of being at an airport,” Lobb said. “What’s unique about the industry is the camaraderie and the passion of those within it. We’re all here because we’re aviation enthusiasts on one way or another.”   

As airport manager for the Collier County Airport Authority, Lobb oversees the county owned and operated fixed-base operators (FBO) on the airports, which cater to business and leisure travel, flight training/instruction and various agricultural and ecotourism clientele. In addition to these responsibilities, he develops and implements the airport capital improvement program to manage and satisfy increasing customer demand, as evidenced by fuel sales that have nearly doubled since his arrival and positive customer satisfaction surveys.

Lobb is charged with the safe and efficient administration, operation, maintenance and development of the Marco Island Executive Airport (MKY), Immokalee Regional Airport (IMM) and Everglades Airpark (X01).

Lobb was brought on board in September 2014 to manage IMM. At the time of his arrival, several multi-million dollar capital improvement project were nearing completion, which featured complete reconstruction of the runways at IMM and MKY.

In March of 2015, Lobb took over the management functions of all three county airports, which possess a total staff of 17 employees. Since that time, Lobb has overhauled the airport financial and operational functions to bring the airport system into a state of profitability for the first time in the authority’s history, eliminating a general taxpayer subsidy that funded ongoing operations, while reinvesting revenues in vital capital improvement/sustainability initiatives.

As a result of Lobb’s efforts and that of his entire airport team, FDOT recently found that the combined economic impact of the county’s three airports is up from $56 million in 2014 to $73 million today.