Amy Ott, 38

By Barbara Connors

Amy Ott takes pride in infusing fresh ideas into established organizations. Along with maverick and visionary Bob O’Brien, she’s helped take the Chicago Rockford International Airport soaring to new heights as its deputy director of administration and finance.

The boomeranger who returned to Rockford after college was there to help grow the airport into a 24-hour, seven-daya- week operation, employing 37.

“I can see her as the executive director of the airport one day or another ‘economic engine’ of her choosing,” current airport Executive Director Bob O’Brien says.

The 38-year-old joined the airport in 2003 as the youngest person on its skeleton-crew staff, after working for several years with the Rock River Water Reclamation District.

“Air service had just started with TransMeridian,” Ott says. “We needed to transition the airport with some new, fresh ideas.” Her work entailed far more than preparing budgets and making sure that the airport remained economically sound - although that in itself was a big feat.

A huge economic driver for the Rockford Region, the 2,900-acre airport in 2007 moved 215,009 passengers, operated as the 22nd largest air cargo airport in the United States, and administered as a Foreign Trade Zone; helping four area companies defer, reduce or eliminate the U.S. customs excise taxes on $225 million in foreign goods. It also managed 90 tenants including a quarry and fuel farm with a direct pipeline.

And sound financial management sure meant something to Rockford taxpayers when in January, 2007, the airport paid off $50.3 million in bonds, resulting in a 62 percent decrease of that item on their property taxes.

As head of the airport’s marketing efforts, Ott in addition helped build the airport’s unique brand, as well as help make the annual Rockford AirFest a reality. She credits her excellent staff of five and group of interns hired annually for much of the work. “I tell the interns to mark off the first weekend in June, because you’ll definitely be working the air show,” she says with a light laugh.

Looking to the future, Ott currently is involved with the airport’s Master Plan Update that looks at infrastructure and other growth needs. “We are moving in a growth mode,” she says. That’s easy to believe with the continual trend of passenger growth since 2003, and the distinction in 2007 by IDOT Division of Aeronautics as Primary Airport of the Year.

As a busy mother of two young boys, Ott says good childcare and a supportive husband have been a key to her career success. She’s been lucky to have the same lady watching her children since her seven-year-old son was six months old. “I don’t think I could work as hard here, without the childcare.”

Realizing that impact, Ott’s been involved with the YWCA of Rockford board, an organization that helps provide childcare solutions for working mothers. “I know how critical that is.”

She also helped found in 2003 the Rockford chapter of the Executive Women’s Golf Association, after finding herself often to be the onlywomen on the green at golf outings. “This is an organization created to provide women a more welcome environment to golf and be exposed to some of the most wonderful golf courses in the region, as well as to make new friends,” Ott says. “The majority of thewomen in the group now are avid golfers.”

When Ott finds the time, she gets herself out on the course, too.