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Speech

Airports Awards Ceremony

Thanks, Kirk [Shaffer]. It’s a pleasure to be here, and it’s a special pleasure to welcome you folks from the field. The tenth annual awards ceremony. If there’s one group that can lay claim to the term excellence, this is it. Congratulations on a terrific year.

I’ve been tracking your work, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Airports has its act together. The success of our ability to lay down new runways is something for which you can take a bow. I can tell you for certain that by and large, people have no idea how hard it is to put in a new runway. But you are pros at making it happen.

It doesn’t end with new concrete. And when I think of our Call to Action, the work that you did in bringing together the airports community together on a largely voluntary basis — well, that’s what safety is all about. We’re all in this together, and your ability to spur our airports partners to do the right thing because it’s the right thing that builds a foundation of safety on which America has come to rely.

At the heart of any safety program is accountability — professional and personal accountability. We have a core value that talks about doing the right thing regardless of whether or not somebody’s looking. That’s something that most of us heard from our grandmothers back in the day, but it’s still true right now.

As public servants, we’re holders of the public trust. They expect us to know the right thing to do, and they expect us to do it. The good news here is that Airports is known for that. Kirk and Kate push constantly for introspection. Drilling down with question after question: How do you know that you’re safe?  How do you know that the safeguards you’ve put in place are doing the job?

Those kinds of questions speak directly to the heart of excellence. And excellence is what today is all about. I’m pleased, maybe honored is the better word, to serve with you. The flying public knows that it can rely on you, that it can trust your work. And so do I.