Jaimi Tapp ’91 keeps the world moving through Atlanta

Tapp is the airport’s first ORAT director, tasked with overseeing major construction projects and systems operations. She brings together architects, engineers and stakeholders to prepare and test changes.

One of her major responsibilities is ATL Next – a multi-billion-dollar capital improvement plan that will extend the Plane Train rails, widen Concourse D, build new parking decks, replace part of the domestic terminal’s roof and renovate Concourse E.

With each major project, Tapp recognizes and manages how those changes will affect customers.

“Whether it’s a public or behind-the-fence kind of construction, we want to make sure it limits the impacts to our passengers and other stakeholders,” Tapp said. “We recognize the weight of that importance here. We understand that we’re a critical component of a national airspace system. When problems happen in Atlanta, it ripples through the entire country if not the world, so just knowing you’re working in such a place of significance is really cool.”

Tapp launched her aviation career at a much smaller facility: the Auburn University Airport. During her time in the aviation management program, Tapp scheduled takeoffs with flight instructors and served as assistant to the general manager.

When Tapp was a senior, she drove guests of Auburn’s airport managers conference to and from the airport and met a group of consultants about to start their own civil engineering firm in Atlanta. They immediately hit it off, and Tapp had a job a month before she graduated.

“Those connections that I made at Auburn are what got me my career,” Tapp said. “It really set me on this idea that somebody actually has to plan out how far those runways are apart and where the taxiways can go and how airport roadways work adjacent to the terminal building. That really was an eye-opening experience. I didn’t realize that people did that.”

There, she worked on airport management and design, then continued consulting in civil engineering firms until she landed at Hartsfield-Jackson in 1995.

At the Atlanta airport, Tapp has worked in noise monitoring, airport planning, activation teams, strategic planning, asset management and sustainability.

During her nearly 30-year career at Hartsfield-Jackson, Tapp opened the international terminal, shaped the strategic plan and activated five new gates for United Airlines.

“I can’t think of too many other jobs that would be nearly this fun. I’m really at the top of my game right now,” Tapp said. “There’s always a new issue, a new problem to solve, so I really love diving in and bringing people together. Everybody has a different aspect of a project, and we all have to do our job to make it successful. That’s what’s keeping me here. There’s really good, exciting, meaningful work to be done.”

While Tapp continues to shape one of the world’s most important aviation hubs, she still makes time to visit the program that started it all. She often guest lectures in Auburn Aviation classrooms and returns to support students pursuing careers in aviation management.

Tapp said when she was a student at Auburn, she was unaware of the opportunities airport planning and management held. She hopes to share her experience with students so they can leave Auburn ready to undertake the challenges and rewards of keeping the world moving.

“At Auburn, I learned so much about myself and how to get through things. It really was a coming-of-age story,” Tapp said. “Nowadays, there are so many more professional groups where they can learn more from each other and the rest of the industry. It’s really encouraging to see that work and the amount of effort these kids put in, they’re not just out there having fun on weekends, they’re really putting the time in to understand the aviation industry and to meet other folks.”