CEO of the Year: Jeff Potter: Frontier Airlines' 'informal nice guy' piloted company through...

Editor's note: Jeff Potter is ColoradoBiz magazine's CEO of the Year, chosen for our December issue to cap what sometimes can be a long, hard year of business. Four finalists in our competition are profiled on page 22. The choice of CEO was made by the editors of the magazine after a review

of about 20 CEO performances over the past year, and appearing in one of six ColoradoBiz lists of Top Companies, including women-owned and minority-owned firms, private and public Colorado companies. The most important factor in making the choice of the winner was, as it is during our selection of the 25 Most Powerful Colorado business people in January, significant action taken by the candidate during the year of selection. Potter deserves the accolade. He fought off some of the worst economic conditions in the history of the airline industry in order to become profitable and chosen for this honor. I hope you agree with our choice, and I hope you enjoy reading about what he has done.--Robert Schwab, Editor, ColoradoBiz

Jeff Potter planned to be a Marine until a job he had cleaning jets at the old Frontier Airlines in Spokane, Wash., lured him from college and to the ticket counter of the airline. He used that counter as the first rung in a ladder that has brought him to the top of one of the country's most successful airlines, the new Frontier. Potter, president and chief executive officer of Frontier Airlines and the first ColoradoBiz CEO of the Year, says he was always captivated by what he calls the "magic of flight," but never expected to lead an airline to profitability through one of the nation's toughest business environments in airline industry history. "I thought my life would be in the military," recalls Potter, son of a Vietnam veteran. But when Potter's college dropped its military program, the would-be jarhead was left adrift.

He was cleaning those jet airlines on the graveyard shift for the "old" Frontier in Spokane when the boss of his maintenance crew encouraged him to apply for a ticket agent's job in Oakland, Calif. "So I went home and told my mom and dad I wanted to quit college and go be a ticket agent for $7 a hour," Potter said.

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Printing boarding passes was hardly a parent's dream job, but Potter's parents were supportive. "My dad said, 'Give yourself a year, and hopefully you'll find something you're very passionate about,'" Potter recalled. "I knew within a month or so that (the ticket agent's job) was something I really enjoyed."

He never went back to college. Instead, he began a circuitous climb to the top of the new Frontier, a path that brought him into the new company, then out of it, and back again--this time to run it. "I could never have envisioned where I'd end up," he said.

Potter more than enjoys the airline business. He thrives in the atmosphere.

Building on the legacy of the new Frontier's co-founder and former CEO Sam Addoms, Potter has capitalized on Frontier's business advantages and Addoms' emphasis on a family-like company culture. Under Potter's watch, Frontier's visibility has soared, thanks in part to a captivating series of ads in which the wildlife painted on the tails of Frontier's jets come to life and carry on a witty repartee.

Potter developed his management and executive skills working for a number of airlines and an aircraft manufacturer before returning to Frontier in 1995, the year after the airline was revived by Addoms and others as a discount carrier. Coming in as vice president of marketing, Potter's tasks included scheduling, pricing, planning and branding. In the next five years, the airline's revenues jumped five-fold, its jet fleet quadrupled in number, and destinations grew to 21 major cities from just eight small markets.

Potter left Frontier in 2000 to head the now-defunct Vanguard Airlines, but returned to Frontier a year later to be groomed as Addoms' successor. From chief operating officer in May 2001, Potter moved to president in August 2001, just in time for the crushing aftereffects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He became CEO on April Fool's Day 2002. "With what the industry's been through over the past four years, I've often wondered how significant that date was," he joked during an interview arranged after he won this award.

Potter has had the latest laugh, though.

In the second quarter that ended Sept. 30, Frontier fought back to profitability, reporting net income of $6.9 million after first-quarter and 2004 fiscal-year losses. "Not even JetBlue (another successful discount carrier) made money that quarter," noted Mike Shonstrom, Denver-based senior vice president of research of Emerging Growth Equities, King of Prussia, Pa. "He (Potter) has been able to restrain or limit the losses in a very difficult operating environment. When the opportunity was there to make money, they made money. They didn't squander it."

Industry experts see Potter as a skilled leader--and an informal, nice guy.

Potter says tongue-in-cheek that he becomes physically ill if he has to wear a suit. His business attire usually consists of a golf shirt and slacks. He's equally informal in his "people" approach. "People who call me 'Mr. Potter' haven't met me," he said.

"He is a class act," said Mike Boyd, an Evergreen-based industry analyst who has known Potter for 10 years, and who has never had much good to say of many airline industry CEOs. "Jeff has no illusions of grandeur. A lot of CEOs take the attitude, 'I am CEO and you will bow before me.' Jeff will have a beer with you."

Mike Bennet, superintendent of Denver Public Schools, met Potter two years ago when Bennet was Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's chief of staff. Bennet joined negotiations among the city, United Airlines and Frontier over gate assignments at Denver International Airport. Talks had begun in the previous administration.

"It was fairly unhappy and intense when we showed up," Bennet recalled. Potter, while zealously advocating for his airline, also was able to see the city's bigger picture, according to Bennet. "That's one reason we got to an agreement fairly quickly, in a matter of weeks as I recall," Bennet said.

Bennet said he and Potter are similar in that neither holds himself apart from the workforce. "That's a very effective leadership style, especially when you're in a perilous environment like the airline industry or DPS," Bennet said.

Indeed, Potter talks frequently and sincerely about being part of a "great" team at Frontier. He says he shares CEO of the Year honors with all 4,600 Frontier employees. The keys to his management style, he says, are respecting employees' contributions as equal to his own, and empowering employees to take responsibility to do what is right. "This is not a company about Jeff," he said. "It's about Frontier."

Potter's door is open to anyone who wants to share ideas, concerns or questions. When employees can't drop in, he goes to them. He and his executive team travel to far-flung Frontier sites to hold "unplugged" sessions in which work stops temporarily. In November, they "unplugged" Frontier's Las Cruces, N.M., reservations center. The phones went on hold while Potter talked briefly about Frontier, and then answered questions. In addition, flight attendants, pilots and other mobile employees can watch Web casts of company meetings at their convenience.

Potter believes that passion and fun go hand in hand.

He leads celebrations of Frontier's successes, whether it's a 10th anniversary gathering at the Denver Zoo or marking Frontier's No. 1 ranking for on-time performance among all national carriers--a first for the airline. Potter and fellow executives also don costumes each Halloween to visit employees and customers at DIA. (He was a convincing Johnny Depp-style pirate this year.)

"You can't go and say we're going to be fun," he said. "My role in that is I do like to have a lot of fun."

Now that Frontier is flying to 48 cities in 29 states and seven destinations in Mexico, keeping far-flung employees focused and energized is one of Potter's biggest challenges. Frontier is retooling an "adopt-a-city" program in which Potter's 11 executive staffers and some of the company's 30 directors will each take responsibility for fostering connections with employees in Frontier's markets.

Frontier faces plenty of external challenges also. Chief among them, Southwest Airlines, the Dallas-based discounter, is entering the Denver market. Gary Kelly, Southwest's CEO, said through a spokesman that he doesn't know Potter well, but added, "I have every respect for Frontier. They have done a great job with the airline. Southwest is looking forward to the competition in Denver." (United Airlines, which remains in bankruptcy protection and is Denver's dominant carrier, declined comment for this article.)

Boyd, the industry analyst, expects the Southwest-Frontier clash to favor Frontier. "Getting on a Frontier flight is like going back to the 1950s. The onboard service is really incredible," Boyd said. "That's going to be hard for any airline to go up against."

Potter agreed that Frontier offers a "good customer experience" with new jets, comfy seating configurations, assigned seats and even DirecTV.

But he said the company has still to do more to build brand-name awareness, especially in its newer markets where Frontier is still relatively unknown.

"People get on our planes in New York or Washington (D.C.) and say, 'Wow. You guys are great, but I never heard of you,'" he said. "We have to focus on getting our name out there."

Helping lead that charge, of course, will be Frontier wingmen Griswold the Bear, Jack the Rabbit and Flip the Dolphin.

But in front of them all will be Jeff Potter, CEO.

PROFILE AT A CLIP

Jeff Potter

CEO Frontier Airlines

Age: 46

Family: Wife Kelly, two sons and one daughter

Leisure activities: Time with family, watching sports, golf ("I'm a horrible golfer, but it's such an incredible game.")

He's reading: "The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America and the Story of Golf," by Mark Frost

Next book: "The Things They Carried," by Tim O'Brien

RELATED ARTICLE: FOUR FINALISTS

THESE FOUR CEOS WERE RANKED AS FINALISTS BY COLORADOBIZ IN ITS FIRST EVER SELECTION OF A CEO OF THE YEAR

CATHEY MCCLAIN FINLON

Cathey Finlon, chairman and CEO, McClain Finlon Advertising Inc. and a former chair of the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, came close to being picked as this year's first CEO of the Year. Finlon is a longtime business community activist whose firm was ranked No. 2 on the ColoradoBiz Top 100 Woman-owned Companies list in 2005, and No. 27 on our magazine's list of Top 250 Private Companies, with $101 million in 2004 revenues (which for advertising companies usually represent billings rather than sales). Those 2004 billings, however, represented a 23 percent increase from $82 million in 2003, which shows solid growth in a market that was devastated by a halt in advertising after the 9-11 terrorist attacks and has grown only grudgingly since.

MIKE SHAW

Mike Shaw, president of Mike Shaw Automotive Group, has been listed by Hispanic Business magazine as one of the 75 wealthiest Hispanics in the country. He owns the Mike Shaw Chevrolet Buick Saab auto dealership, and like Finlon, has been active in the Metro Denver Chamber. His company posted $275 million in 2004 sales in the Top 250 Private Companies list this year, for a No. 12 ranking in the state and a 30 percent gain from 2003. His company for several years has been listed No. 2 to Burt Automotive Group on the magazine's Top 50 Minority-owned Businesses list, but Burt Automotive has been around quite a few years longer than Shaw. Shaw was awarded a Martin Luther King Jr. Business Social Responsibility Award in 2001.

R. DAVID HOOVER

David Hoover is chairman and CEO of Ball Corp. in Broomfield, one of the few Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state. Ball Corp. is No. 7 on our 2005 Top 100 Colorado-based Public Companies list, with $5.4 billion in '04 sales, up 9.3 percent from '03. The company posted a $295.6 million profit for '04. Ball has 13,200 employees, and is certainly Colorado's premier home-based aerospace company since Lockheed Martin's parent is based in Maryland. Hoover, after being named CEO in January, 2001, posted profits of $156.1 million in 2002, $229.9 million in 2003, and $295.6 million in fiscal 2004. He was elected chairman of the company in 2002, and his public profile in the Colorado business community has risen almost in tandem with those yearly profits.

LANCE K. VIERRA

Lance Vierra, CEO of Global Technology Resources Inc., a computer hardware reseller for Hewlett Packard, Cisco and Sun Microsystems, was No. 4 on our Top 50 Minority-owned Businesses list, and No. 62 on our Top 250 Private Companies list. Global Tech posted $30 million in 2004 revenues, a 69 percent increase over 2003, and Vierra's company was named the nation's 6th fastest growing company among Inc. magazine's InnerCity 100 this year. That list's website said workers from GTRI recently climbed three 14,000-foot peaks to install a wireless communication system meant to help fire-fighters communicate by radio during a wildfire. Vierra's company, started in 1998, has already been recognized for its 45 percent to 55 percent sales growth each year of its first five years in existence.

BY ROBERT SCHWAB, EDITOR, COLORADOBIZ

WRITTEN BY SANDY GRAHAM