Team Leader of the Year: Carter Ganss Builds a Culture of Clarity, Capability and Care at Southwest Airlines

For Carter Ganss, leadership tends to show up in the details.

It's in how teams are structured and supported, how problems are understood and solved, and in the consistency of how people are treated, whether during routine operations or periods of disruption.

That steady, methodical approach has defined Ganss’ rise through Southwest Airlines and now shapes a sweeping transformation of the airline’s ground support equipment (GSE) organization. Named Ground Support Worldwide’s Team Leader of the Year, Ganss is widely credited by colleagues and industry partners for building a high-performing, future-focused GSE function while maintaining a deeply human, team-first leadership style.

Those who nominated him - and there were several - point to a rare balance. As Rob Lamb, Vice President, Vehicle & After-Market Sales at Charlatte America noted, “Carter overcomes leadership challenges by building world-class management teams and equipping them with the support they need to succeed. The teams he’s built…are some of the best in the business.”

A career shaped by aviation and determination

Ganss’ path into aviation was anything but accidental. He grew up in a household shaped by the industry. His father was a pilot and his mother a flight attendant for Braniff International, a now-defunct airline known for its bold branding and colorful aircraft.

“I grew up in a commercial airline family,” Ganss said. “That’s really where the passion started.”

That early exposure left a lasting impression, even as his parents encouraged him to pursue a more stable career after Braniff’s collapse. He followed practical advice at first, earning a finance degree and beginning his career in financial services. But aviation remained the goal.

“I was the second-born rebel son,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’ll show you.’”

He joined Southwest Airlines in the early 2000s and built a career across finance, network planning and strategic roles before making a deliberate shift into operations.

“What I really wanted to learn was the execution side - how those plans actually get delivered,” he said.

Turning crisis Into transformation

Ganss’ leadership of the GSE organization came into sharper focus following Winter Storm Elliott, a disruptive event in 2022 that exposed gaps in visibility and coordination across the airline’s ground operations.

The experience became a turning point. It revealed a lack of real-time insight into fleet status and performance, limitations that hindered decision-making during a system-wide disruption.

“We had blind spots,” Ganss said. “We didn’t have an objective, data-driven way to understand what was happening with the fleet.”

What followed was a comprehensive transformation strategy focused on real-time visibility, data integration and operational accountability. But just as important as the systems being built was the organizational structure behind them.

Joe Griffith, Chief Commercial Officer at Mallaghan GSE, one of the industry leaders who nominated Ganss, described the impact in stark terms: “Within one year, Carter not only revolutionized the Southwest GSE function but also set it on a path as a leader in delivering exceptional efficiency, innovation and reliability.”

The transformation has included expanded telemetry, new analytics platforms, increased technician staffing and the creation of dedicated planning, engineering and fleet strategy functions. The goal is not only to understand when equipment fails, but why - and to fix those root causes.

“If something is out of service for three days, we need to know what caused every part of that delay,” Ganss said.

Building a team to match the vision

Central to that effort has been a dramatic expansion of the GSE planning organization, growing from a handful of people into a multi-disciplinary team spanning engineering, fleet management, analytics and project execution.

“The team is why we are succeeding,” Ganss said. “Everything revolves around how we support the people in the field and make them more effective.”

That team-first approach is something Southwest colleagues consistently highlighted in nominations. Madison Dern, Manager of Ground Equipment Projects and Analytics (GSE) at Southwest, described Ganss as “a defining force” in the organization.

“Carter has strengthened partnerships across Southwest and advanced new tools, insights and processes that streamline how work gets done,” she said. “He leads not by authority, but by example, creating a safety-focused, empowered and collaborative culture.”

The results are both structural and cultural. Under Ganss’ leadership, GSE has gained increased visibility at the executive level, leading to significant investments in staffing, infrastructure and long-term capability building.

Innovation grounded in the ramp

While strategy and structure are central to the transformation, Ganss’ work is equally defined by practical innovation.

A key example is the development of a seatbelt compliance system that uses telemetry and engineering controls to enforce safe operating behavior, an initiative that directly addresses a persistent risk on the ramp.

As Lamb noted in his nomination, “This initiative reflects his strong understanding of new technologies and his ability to pair this with practical improvements to the ramp.”

The same philosophy extends across the GSE operation: use data to identify problems, apply technology where it makes sense, and always tie improvements back to real-world outcomes for operators and technicians.

Leadership through clarity and care

Ask Ganss to describe his leadership philosophy, and he returns to a single word: clarity.

“It starts with clarity of mission,” he said.

From there, the approach is structured but human. Define roles. Align teams. Identify obstacles. Remove them. And throughout it all, invest in people.

“You can have very high standards and also care for people,” he said, reflecting a philosophy influenced in part by former Southwest President Colleen Barrett.

That balance - accountability paired with empathy - has been a defining trait of Southwest’s culture since the days of Herb Kelleher, co-founder and long-time CEO of Southwest Airlines, and it continues to shape how Ganss leads today.

Dern emphasized that point in her nomination, noting that Ganss “naturally earns buy-in through authenticity and transparency” and consistently creates an environment of trust and respect, even during periods of significant change.

Advice for the next generation

For emerging leaders, Ganss offers a message grounded in his own experience: start with people.

“Understand who they are, what their roles are, what success looks like for them, and what’s getting in their way,” he said.

From there, expand outward - aligning with customers, leadership and organizational priorities - but always anchored in the needs of the team.

It is a philosophy that mirrors the way he has approached his own career: learn broadly, stay curious and focus on enabling others to succeed.

A leader defined by his team

Two years into the GSE transformation, Ganss sees progress, but also more work ahead. His focus remains on completing the foundation his team has built and positioning the organization for long-term success.

“For the foreseeable future, I want to continue to provide leadership and support within GSE,” he said.

When it comes to recognition, however, he is quick to shift the spotlight.

“I feel like I’m being given an award for what my team is doing,” he said. “The team does all the work.”

It is a perspective echoed by those around him, and one that ultimately defines why he was selected as Team Leader of the Year.