Jane Garvey

Jane F. Garvey is an American former government transportation and public works official, now a business executive, and the chairman of Meridiam North America. She was the first female Administrator of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration from 1997 to 2002. In May 2018, she was tapped to become the first female chairman of United Continental Holdings.

Biography Early life Garvey (née Famiano) -- daughter of an Air Force colonel—was born in Brooklyn, New York on February 2, 1944, but was raised primarily in western Massachusetts, near Amherst College.

Education Garvey (Famiano) earned her B.A. from Mount Saint Mary College (a Catholic women's college in Hooksett, New Hampshire which closed in 1978 ) and her master's degree (M.A.T.) in English instruction from Mount Holyoke College in 1969.

At Harvard, she finished a fellowship program developed for public leaders.

Airport director Her next official role was as director of Boston's Logan International Airport in the early 1990s. Garvey's principal assignments, as Logan Airport executive, were to assure freight and passenger road access to Logan during the "Big Dig" project, supervise the airport's aviation operations and planning, coordinate policies including developing a "second major regional airport", aviation noise rules, and promptly proposed high-speed, inter-city rail links connecting Logan Airport to New York City and northern New England.

FAA Administrator Appointment In 1997, Garvey was appointed by President Bill Clinton as the 14th Administrator of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, taking charge in August, 1997 of the 49,000-member agency—in the process becoming several "firsts" for an FAA Administrator: she was the first Administrator appointed to a 5-year term, the first female Administrator, and the first civilian appointed Administrator who was not a licensed pilot (two other non-licensed Administrators were a former U.S. Air Force general and a former Secretary of the Air Force). Her lack of aviation expertise—in aircraft operations, maintenance, and certification, air traffic control, and aviation safety—created some consternation in aviation industry circles.

Garvey claimed "my own management style is one of meeting and talking to employees."

Key issues: 9/11 attacks, flight delays, institutional change Garvey was the FAA Administrator during the September 11, 2001 attacks (terrorists hijacking U.S. airliners for suicide attacks against New York City and Washington, D.C.).

On the morning of the attacks—shortly after the hijacked planes were learned to have struck their targets—Garvey echoed approval of her subordinates' decision to order all 4,000 aircraft over the United States to land immediately at the nearest airport. The order was quickly underscored by her superior, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta, who was with Vice President Dick Cheney in a bunker under the White House. It was the first-ever emergency grounding of all civilian aircraft flying over the nation.

In December, 2001, in an unusual move, Garvey announced that customary performance bonuses would not be given out to personnel in the FAA, because the September 11th attacks—resulting largely from the failure of aviation security (at that time chiefly the FAA's responsibility) -- had so severely "disrupted the U.S. air transportation industry and the personal lives of people throughout the U.S." that she thought it would not be "appropriate to grant incentive payouts."

Garvey generally escaped criticism for the agency's failure to anticipate and prevent the attacks, and received some praise for helping to guide the aviation industry through the radically disruptive aftermath. and FAA organizational dysfunction, the federal government reaction to the 9/11 events caused federal aviation authorities—including Garvey

Sexual harassment issues Shortly after arriving at the FAA, during a period of intense national political attention to sexual harassment issues in the federal government, Garvey found the FAA (which she later characterized as "male-dominated"

The new contract—negotiated with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) president Mike McNally—sought to gradually eliminate 30% of supervisors by attrition, replacing them (initially) with 1% more air traffic controllers (particularly in busy towers), while shifting some of the leftover supervisor pay to the controllers, as raises. Particular attention was given to rewarding controllers with more demanding duties, and those working at busy airports.

According to the New York Times, the new contract was a first for the federal government by allowing it to offer federal workers some merit-based incentives.

Before Clinton's election and Garvey's appointment, the union had sued the Republican administration of President George H. W. Bush over efforts to privatize many of the nation's air traffic control towers (an attempt to eliminiate government-union jobs) -- a suit which remained unresolved long after Garvey's departure under President George W. Bush. However, the union reportedly softened under President Clinton and Garvey, and acquiesced to the privatization of 56 towers.

To demonstrate publicly that the skies were safe, Garvey rode in a jet, aloft at midnight (Universal Coordinated Time) as the millennium changed.

Presidential transition In January, 2001, when Democratic president Clinton was succeeded by the Republican president George W. Bush, the Washington Post noted that Garvey was in a peculiar political predicament—because of the new law (of which she was the first beneficiary) which had made the FAA Administrator position a five-year non-removable appointment, legally immune from the normal ouster of officials when the White House changed political parties (a Congressional change in the 1996 FAA reauthorization law). However, other FAA political appointees (her deputies) were subject to re-appointment or dismissal by the incoming president—creating the awkward possibility that a Democrat FAA Administrator might have to "administer" the FAA through a cadre of hostile Republican deputy administrators. The Post, however, noted that Garvey may have "dodged a bullet" during this transition, because of two factors: Her boss, Clinton's Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta—with whom Garvey had good relations—was retained as Bush's Transportation Secretary, at first, and was expected to have some say in the subsequent FAA appointments. Garvey, herself, managed to maintain good relations across party lines.

Final assessments In a hearing of the House Aviation Subcommittee, shortly before her term as Administrator expired, Garvey faced wide criticism of the FAA from aviation experts and members of Congress—with the subcommittee chairman, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), calling the FAA "dysfunctional". Garvey conceded that there should have been more progress during her tenure, but said the agency was "better focused and more customer-driven." And lawmakers reportedly praised her for efforts to reform the FAA's obsolete institutional culture, and for successfully preparing the FAA for the feared Y2K computer changeover, and for coping with the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Industry executive Following her departure from the FAA, Garvey became the executive vice president of the consulting and public relations firm Apco Worldwide.,

In August, 2005, Garvey was named Vice President of corporate communications for Convergys, a provider of business, human resources, and customer-support services.

In 2009, she became a member of the board of directors of United Airlines, an airline she had previously regulated as FAA Administrator.

In early 2015, she became executive director for the infrastructure advisory group of JP Morgan Securities, which arranged private buyouts of various public highways and other assets. though the eventual choice was congressman Ray LaHood.

Garvey's popularity with the air traffic controllers' union, from her time at the FAA, led President Obama to appoint her to negotiate labor disputes with controllers in 2009, settling a number of long-standing bitter union disputes with the FAA. The outcome so pleased NATCA union president Patrick Forrey that he thanked the President and Transportation Secretary, and called the outcome a turning point in FAA/controller relations.

In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Garvey was one of a handful of transportation policy advisers to Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. and has been a board member of MITRE since 2004.

In 2014, Garvey, with former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, co-chaired a 22-member Transportation Reinvention Commission, an advisory commission convened to study problems of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

In February 2015, Garvey was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker to a six-member task force reviewing problems with the Boston-area Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), in the middle of wintertime service failures throughout the MBTA—America's fifth-largest mass transit system

In May 2018, Jane Garvey was chosen to become the next Chairman of United Continental Holdings. She will be the first female to hold the position in the joint history of United Continental Holdings. 2017: L. Welch Pogue Award for Lifetime Achievement in Aviation from the International Aviation Club of Washington DC (IAC) and Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine.