Message from CEO Phillip A. Washington: Making Vision 100 Happen

It’s been several weeks since I introduced to you the Vision 100 concept. You’ll recall that Denver International Airport (DEN) has accepted the challenge to do and become all the things needed to support 100 million annual passengers, which is expected to happen sometime in the next 10 years. Today, I’m reporting on an effort to operationalize Vision 100 through a strategic planning process and will be asking for your assistance.

Like many of you, I’m fascinated by the construction process. It’s amazing that workers are able to combine their talents and skills to eventually construct a building. What keeps them working together, in a proper order, on a timely basis? They’re following a plan.

Those of us not intimately involved in a project see progress at intervals, such as at a groundbreaking, “topping out,” or ribbon-cutting ceremonies. But in order for any progress to happen, detailed plans must be created to support a building’s eventual purpose or an architect’s rendering.

On complicated, large-scale projects there could be millions of individual tasks that must be performed in a specified order so that an eventual ribbon-cutting happens. Daily tasks by individuals combine and over time they create the building in the rendering.

Building a high-functioning airport can be compared to constructing a building. Vision 100 is like an architect’s rendering of what DEN must become to support 100 million annual passengers. As beautiful as that illustration may be, it is not sufficiently detailed to direct all the elements of a project.

Using Vision 100 as our inspiration, we’re now creating a strategic plan that will help inform and direct our multi-year, annual and even daily activities. When you combine an overall vision with a detailed plan even mundane tasks can take on new meaning. We won’t be just emptying the trash, moving snow, taking a call or having a meeting, we’ll be making Vision 100 happen.

A strategic plan is one of the most important documents that an organization creates to be successful. And some of the work to operationalize Vision 100 is already in progress, although there is much yet to be defined. DEN’s senior leadership has been working to assess the strategic environment so we can understand what we excel at, where we need some work and where our industry is headed in the next 10 years.

As work on the strategic plan continues, we want your input and have created this survey to help frame out the four strategic pillars of Vision 100 – Powering Our People, Growing Our Infrastructure, Maintaining what we have and Expanding global connections. Please take some time to share your thoughts. The survey closes at 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 26 and we hope to hear from you. We can’t achieve our vision without your input.

Thank you for working with us on this important effort!

Sincerely,

Phillip A. Washington
Chief Executive Officer