Page 109 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE LESSONS

“There are no front lines in this struggle against terrorism. It’s being
fought half a world away on foreign soil and also in our airports, ports,
and tunnels and on our bridges, roads, and highways,” Coy said. “When
I became CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority, I took charge of an
organization that saw this country’s enemy up close and personal, and there
is no way to describe the grief that Logan felt—and still feels—at being
forever linked to that terrible event. Yet by joining Massport I was given
the opportunity to see America’s new patriotism hard at work, and it was
a remarkable sight.”
Although Congress had instituted nearly impossible deadlines, Coy
embraced the challenge as part of his turnaround strategy for Massport. A
new, never-before-designed $146 million baggage-screening system was
needed, and Coy led up to 800 workers who labored through multiple
shifts seven days a week to try to beat the clock—and the odds—to fin-
ish the job on time. The massive project encompassed 85,000 square feet
of new baggage space, 55,000 square feet of renovated space, three miles
of conveyor belts, 400 electrical motors, eight electrical substations, and
forty-four large screening devices. It was the nation’s first fully automated
baggage-screening system, a state-of-the-art triumph for Coy and his new
Massport team.
“The workers came to Boston from nearly forty states, and few came
just for the money. One man who came from Ohio and lived in a trailer
hooked to his truck told me that he was there to show his patriotism,” Coy
recalled. “Patriotism is not too strong a word to describe the motivation of
those citizen patriots who did two years’ worth of construction in about
six months; it was a re-energized American spirit that spurred us on.”
In much the same way he had managed the productivity of the
National Drug Policy Board, Coy kept the Massport team focused on its
short-term goals and maintained a sense of urgency that drove the team
ever onward toward its long-term mission of creating a secure facility for
the millions of airline passengers who travel in and out of Logan Airport
every year. It was a huge undertaking that went beyond baggage screen-
ing. Coy was determined to lead his team toward making Massport and
Logan a world-class model of efficiency and safety, and he did just that.
“We initially came up with four tactical business objectives: operations,
facilities, performance, and good citizenship, which dealt with how we
affected the neighborhoods surrounding our facilities,” Coy explained.

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