The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority (SDCRAA) was created by a California state
law in October 2001; this gave it the responsibility to establish and operate airports within San
Diego County. Most importantly, from Thella Bowens’s perspective, the law required the San
Diego Unified Port District (Port of San Diego) to transfer operation of San Diego’s international
airport to the SDCRAA by January 2003. Bowens was the current senior director of the Aviation
Division within the Port of San Diego that was responsible for operating the San Diego
International Airport. When the law was passed, she was named Interim Executive Director of
the SDCRAA, and assigned an interim advisory board to help manage the transition.
Bowens’s tenure with the organization gave her an important understanding of the
organization’s operations and its history. For example, the San Diego International Airport
accounted for about $4.3 billion or roughly 4% of San Diego’s regional economy. Forecasts
called for air travel to more than double to 35 million passengers by 2030, and contribute up to
$8 billion to the regional economy. In addition, Bowens had participated in the Aviation Division’s
strategic planning process in 2001. She was well positioned to lead this effort.
As she thought about managing the startup of the SDCRAA, two broad but interdependent
categories of initial activity emerged: developing the transition plan and dealing with the legal
and regulatory issues.
DEVELOPING THE TRANSITION PLAN in April 2002,
Bowens took the senior team from the old Aviation Division to an off-site workshop to discuss
the creation and management of an effective transition process. This group understood the
importance of SDCRAA quickly becoming a stand-alone agency and the need to be seen
differently in the marketplace. The group recommended revising the existing strategic plan, to
hire staff to research, discuss, and create a transition plan, and to conduct retreats with
employees from multiple organizational levels. In response, Bowens chartered the Airport
Transition Team to ensure the smooth and seamless transfer of operations and public services
provided by the airport without regard to which agency was responsible for their provision.
In May 2002, seven employees were handpicked from the Aviation Division to become
members of the Airport Transition Team and relieved of their day-to-day job responsibilities so
they could focus on the transition. The selection criteria included the ability to work within a
process yet think outside of the box, to communicate well with others in a team, and to influence
directors and managers without having formal authority. A one-and-a-half-day kick-off meeting
was held to set expectations, to communicate goals and responsibilities, and to initiate the
team. A “war room” was established for the team to keep records, hold meetings, and serve as
a communication hub. The team named themselves the “Metamorphs.”
Many Metamorph members came from different parts of the organization and, having never
worked together, needed to rely on each other to effectively design the transition process.
Senior team member Angela Shafer-Payne, then director of Airport Business and
Administration, worked closely with the Metamorphs and led formal team-building activities
throughout the year. Through their work together, the Metamorphs discovered how large and
daunting the organizational change was and yet appreciated the unique, once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to make an impact. As one member put it, “How many times in your life can you say
that you helped put together a brand-new organization?”
The Metamorphs decided that to meet their charter, any transition plan had to be designed
specifically to minimize disruption to customers and service, minimize airport and non-airport
financial impacts, and properly address and resolve all legal and regulatory matters. These
criteria guided the creation of 12 functional teams (which expanded later to 19). Responsibility
for the teams was divided among the transition team members, and each team was composed
of employees from the old Aviation Division and other Port of San Diego departments. Their
mission was to collect data, establish new or parallel functions for the SDCRAA, and highlight
any issues related to the start-up of that particular function. Once the teams were in place, they
were given tools to use and questions that needed to be addressed. Each team set aside time