How Did You Get Into This Room?

When American Airlines CEO Doug Parker was taking questions from attendees at the ACI-NA Annual Conference back in September, a student got up and inquired about career development and leadership for the future of the industry.

Parker was piqued by the inquiry, so he asked a major question of his own: “How did you get into this room?” When Parker learned about the initiative the student took to get himself registered to attend a conference of some of the most important players in aviation, he had nothing but praise because such mentality is how the roots to success are cemented.

The Top 40 Under 40 is by far my favorite issue of the year. Not only does it highlight the future leaders of this industry, but it also bares the work and grit so many talented people are doing to make themselves stand out. Reading their profiles and talking with the winners shows real change is coming to the industry to take us all to the next level.

Even more interesting is the number of winners this year who never even thought about aviation as a career while in college or starting out in the workforce. With so many falling into the field by chance, then excelling at it, you can see the culture of the North American aviation industry makes a compelling case to talented people to not only enter the field, but also stick around.

It also highlights the ongoing need to make sure aviation comes to mind as a career choice for tomorrow’s workforce as well. As someone around the same age as many of this year’s winners, I know aviation was never presented as a viable career option in high school or college outside of a pilot (if you could afford it). Now more than ever we need to keep the industry on top of educating today’s students so we can build a robust talent pipeline to keep the tradition of growth going.

But for this year’s winners, they were picked by our judging panel as part of our partnership with ACC because of their talents, drive and skills. It was a very crowded field, so the winners are truly the best of the best.

And because of that, they’re now getting recognized for their efforts in what is now one of the most widely articles in the industry. Not only will our 16,000 subscribers and 14,000 daily newsletter readers learn about their efforts, but in 2016 alone more than 25,000 people from across the industry read Top 40 profiles on our website. That's a lot of people who know your name now and why you're leading the industry. 

Congrats to the 2017 Top 40 Under 40. You’re officially in the room.