Garza appoints new CEO at Austin airport

Interim City Manager Jesús Garza has announced the appointment of Ghizlane Badawi as the interim chief executive officer for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Badawi has worked in a variety of leadership roles at ABIA over the past 15 years. She has most recently served as deputy CEO, focusing on operational resiliency and expanding the airport’s infrastructure capacity. In a memo to the mayor and City Council, Garza noted that Badawi’s previous airport titles included assistant director, chief operating officer and chief experience & performance officer. “She will now bring that diverse and extensive background in airport management to her new role,” he wrote.

Badawi is taking over at a busy time for Austin’s airport, which will see a multitude of construction projects over the next few years.

Jacqueline Yaft, the former CEO at ABIA, resigned last March after an investigation that revealed she had failed to inform the city of a conflict of interest she had in dealing with a former employer. That employer had a contract with the airport. According to an audit, Yaft should not have been involved in dealings with that former employer, but she continued to do so.

When Yaft resigned, Jim Smith, a longtime city of Austin executive who had retired, agreed to take over as interim chief executive at the airport. He had served as the department’s CEO from 2000 to 2019.

Several concerning events at ABIA last year – including near misses and two tarmac deaths – drew attention from Council, particularly Council Member Vanessa Fuentes. Fuentes authored a resolution in November to require that Council be notified immediately when dangerous incidents or deaths occur at the airport.

Smith resigned from his temporary post in December, and Garza praised him for returning to the city when asked and noted that Smith had agreed to continue as a consultant as needed.

In his memo, Garza also shared news about Robert Goode, who has been serving as an interim assistant city manager for the past year. According to Garza, Goode will no longer have the word “interim” in his title. He will serve as assistant city manager over Austin Water, Watershed Protection, Aviation, Transportation and Public Works, and Capital Delivery Services, and will also direct the city’s support for Project Connect.

Garza noted that in Goode’s previous 11 years with the city, he served as assistant city manager over a variety of departments, including Aviation, Austin Water, Austin Resource Recovery, the Corridor Program Office and the Public Works and Transportation departments. He left the city of Austin to join the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority as deputy executive director, a post he held from December 2018 to August 2021. Goode then joined engineering consulting firm Lockwood, Andrews, and Newnam as vice president and senior program manager.

When Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros resigned in the wake of an employee error that resulted in residents being directed to boil their water for three days, then-City Manager Spencer Cronk hired Goode to serve as interim director of Austin Water.  He served in that position for eight months prior to assuming the interim role.

Two other well-known city employees have also changed jobs. Ken Craig, who served as an aide to Council Member Ann Kitchen, is now working for the director of shelter operations in the Homeless Strategy Office. That office was recently split off from the city’s health department. Caleb Pritchard, a former reporter for the Austin Monitor, first joined the city as an aide to Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison. He then joined the office of Council Member Zo Qadri and is now providing public information for the Planning Department.

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