ATL’s Myrna White Named 2021 Ted Bushelman Legacy Award for Creativity and Excellence Recipient

November 8, 2021

RENO, NV — Airports Council International – North America (ACI-NA) today announced Myrna M. White, IAP, Assistant General Manager, Office of Public and International Affairs for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), as the 2021 recipient of the Ted Bushelman Legacy Award for Creativity and Excellence. The Bushelman Award recognizes the accomplishments and contributions of airport marketing, communications, and customer experience professionals. The award was presented to White during the 2021 ACI-NA Annual Conference and Exhibition in Reno, NV.

“Mryna White is one of our industry’s most generous and gracious communications leaders,” said ACI-NA President and CEO Kevin M. Burke.  “Her ability to bring the perspective of the world’s busiest airport to discussions about marketing, branding, mentoring and communications created an accessibility for airports of all sizes to strategies and processes that had been proven under the most intense of conditions. Myrna herself is incredibly accessible as an individual, as a sounding board, and as a friend, and has established herself as a model of excellence in airport communications.”

As the Assistant General Manager for ATL’s Office of Public and International Affairs, White oversees media relations, international affairs, public relations, government affairs, conferences/special events and community affairs.

Hired to win jurisdictional approvals to build ATL’s fifth runway, White has a storied career with Hartsfield-Jackson. Before being named Director of Public Affairs, she managed the airport’s legislative agenda on the local, state and congressional levels.  She recently led the development and implementation of a series of consumer confidence briefings for key airport stakeholders, demonstrating the airport’s pandemic response and readiness for a full resumption of operations.

White is a past chair of ACI-NA’s Marketing, Communications, and Customer Experience Committee.  She remains active in ACI-NA as a speaker for ACI-NA conferences and events.  Through that role, White helped organize the successful Airports for the Future campaign launched by ACI-NA in 2014 to increase awareness for airport infrastructure needs leading into Federal Aviation Authorization deliberations.  She brought together the industry under one communications campaign to demonstrate industry unity on the need to modernize the passenger facility charge and to clearly articulate the value of airports to local and our national economy.

White is also a graduate rigorous ACI World Airport Management Professional Accreditation Program, an executive development program for airport executives worldwide.

The Ted Bushelman Legacy Award for Creativity and Excellence is named for its first recipient, Ted Bushelman, who served as Senior Director of Communications at the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport for 40 years.

The award is presented each year to an individual nominated and selected by his or her peers in the airport industry. This special award recognizes the values, accomplishments and creativity of airport marketing, communications, and customer experience professionals who also share those talents and contribute to the legacy of professionalism experienced throughout our meetings and programs.

In addition, the individual who is selected must have a record of demonstrating his or her skills, expertise, and professionalism in some or all of the following areas:

  • Promotes the professionalism of the marketing, communications, and customer experience disciplines within the airport industry;
  • Has a history of generating and embracing new ideas to promote and support his or her airport’s programs and services;
  • Actively shares his or her knowledge and experience with other marketing, communications, and customer experience professionals within the airport industry;
  • Participates in the ACI-NA Marketing, Communications, and Customer Experience Committee and attends its programs; and
  • Promotes the importance, and advances the understanding, of airports and aviation within the broader community.

Past Bushelman Award Winners

2008 – Ted Bushelman, Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport
2009 – Michael Conway, Detroit Metropolitan Airport
2010 – Jerry Staples, Halifax International Airport
2011 – Tara Hamilton, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority
2012 – Patricia Rowe, Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport
2013 – Not awarded
2014 – Lucinda Harshman, Pittsburgh International Airport
2015 – Carolyn Fennell, Greater Orlando Aviation Authority
2016 – Dickie Davis, Miami International Airport
2017 – Not awarded
2018 – Not awarded
2019 – Brad Martin, Boston Logan International Airport
2020 – Karen Ellis, San Antonio Airport System
2021 – Myrna White, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

 

About ACI-NA

Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) represents local, regional, and state governing bodies that own and operate commercial airports in the United States and Canada. ACI-NA member airports enplane more than 95 percent of the domestic and virtually all the international airline passenger and cargo traffic in North America. Approximately 380 aviation-related businesses are also members of ACI-NA, providing goods and services to airports. Collectively, U.S. airports support more than 11.5 million jobs and account for $1.4 trillion in economic activity – or more than seven percent of the total U.S. GDP. Canadian airports support 405,000 jobs and contribute C$35 billion to Canada’s GDP. Learn more at www.airportscouncil.org.