The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board of directors elected Frank M. Conner III to serve as its next chairman and Warner H. Session to serve as its next vice chairman at its monthly meeting. The board also re-elected Quince T. Brinkley, Jr. as secretary to the Authority. All three will serve one-year terms in office beginning in January 2014.

From left: Quince T. Brinkley, Jr., Frank M. Conner III, Warner Session

Frank M. Conner III, chairman, is a partner with DLA Piper LLP, a global legal services firm. He serves as managing partner of the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. Conner serves on the boards of directors of Ford’s Theatre and as counsel to the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. He previously served as chairman of the board of the Virginia College Savings Plan, as a trustee of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and as a board member of the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Conner is an appointee of the governor of Virginia.

Warner H. Session, vice chairman, is the founder of The Session Law Firm, which devotes the major part of its practice to representing businesses in the information technology, real estate and non-profit sectors. The Session Law Firm offers legal, government relations and business consulting services in such matters as corporate transactions, federal procurement, small business development, strategic partnering, legislation, regulatory compliance and real estate. Session is former counsel to the House Government Activities and Transportation subcommittee and served as lead counsel to the subcommittee as it investigated the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Session serves on the Boards of the Thurgood Marshall Center, United Black Fund, Parklands Community Center, and Metropolitan Day School.  Session is an appointee of the mayor of the District of Columbia.

Quince T. Brinkley, Jr., secretary, was first elected vice president and secretary to the Airports Authority in 2008. Brinkley has a distinguished career in public and private service and extensive experience in banking, airport consulting, real estate development and finance. He has worked for the City of Chicago in the Office of Management and Budget and served as a senior airport consultant with Unison Consulting Group Inc. in Chicago, where he provided consulting services to airports across the nation. Brinkley has also worked in the real estate development and finance arena in the Washington, D.C., region, Atlanta, and Charlotte, N.C., with the Urban Residential Development Corporation, the Freddie Mac Corporation and Wachovia Securities.

Following the vote the board acknowledged outgoing chairman Michael Curto for his contributions to the Airports Authority over the past two years.

“Michael Curto has done a remarkable job in leading this group through a very difficult and challenging time and reestablished the credibility of this organization,” Conner said. “He should be commended in the highest order. “

“I want to personally acknowledge my appreciation for Michael Curto’s leadership,” said Director Richard S. Carter. “He steered us through some very turbulent waters, stood fast through all these matters and held us together as a board of directors.”

The board of directors meeting included an update on the settlement reached in the litigation regarding the merger of American Airlines and US Airways. 

“We congratulate the airlines and the other parties involved in the settlement proposal,” said Airports Authority President and CEO Jack Potter. “We will work with all airlines involved to make any needed modifications to facilities and procedures to assure continued top-quality service to our passengers.”

Additionally, the board was briefed on September air traffic statistics at Reagan and Dulles airports.

Combined, both airports served 3.4 million passengers in the month of September. Passenger traffic at Reagan National declined by 1.4 percent for the month. Overall, the airport’s year-to-date passenger activity remains on a record-setting pace. International traffic continued to grow at Dulles, up 2.0 percent for September, the eleventh straight month of international growth. However, total traffic for the airport was down by 1.9 percent in September.

A detailed breakdown of the September Air Traffic Statistics can be found here.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority was established in 1987 by the governments of Virginia and the District of Columbia to manage and operate Washington’s Ronald Reagan National and Dulles International airports, which together serve more than 40 million passengers a year. The Airports Authority also operates and maintains the Dulles Airport Access Road and the Dulles Toll Road and manages construction of the Silver Line project, a 23-mile extension of the Washington region’s Metrorail system into Loudoun County, Va. No taxpayer money is used to operate the toll road, which is funded by toll revenues, or the airports, which are funded through aircraft landing fees, rents and revenues from concessions. The Silver Line construction is funded by a combination of toll-road revenues, airport contributions and federal, state and local government appropriations. The Airports Authority is led by a 17-member board of directors appointed by the governors of Virginia, Maryland, the mayor of Washington, D.C., and the president of the United States.

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