SkyWest’s Jerry Atkin is longest-tenured CEO in airline industry

ST. GEORGE – Jerry C. Atkin, chairman and chief executive officer of SkyWest, Inc., said he never imagined when he became the youngest president of a regional airline service that he’d one day manage a billion-dollar company.

“That first year was rough,” he said. “I learned one of the best lessons of my life, but I would never live it again for anything.”

Now Atkin is the longest-tenured CEO in the airline industry.

He joined SkyWest in 1974 as the director of finance, two years after his uncle, Ralph Atkin, founded SkyWest Airlines in St. George.

The first two years were rough on the company, which is when Jerry Atkin stepped in to help, he said.

Born and raised in St. George, Jerry Atkin said he never anticipated moving back to Southern Utah after leaving for northern Utah.

“St. George population at the time was (about) 7,500,” he said. “There weren’t jobs to be had in St. George. But then I thought, maybe this is my business opportunity and besides that, I can move back home.”

Atkin and his wife, who was pregnant with their first child, moved back to St. George where he helped turn around the failing SkyWest Airlines.

With just three 9-passenger planes and about 20 employees, it quickly became evident the company was going to go under, Atkin said.

“We knew we were in over our head,” he said. “We couldn’t give it away.”

With no other choice, Atkin was tasked with coming up with a feasible way to save the company, he said.

“I put together a simple plan to try and turn things around,” he said. “I didn’t have a grand plan, but I wanted to make sure we were offering reliable air travel to Salt Lake City and to the Las Vegas connection.”

After laying off some of the employees and filling in gaps in employment himself, Atkin said the company slowly started to turn around.

“We were just a bunch of young guys looking to make something work,” he said. “We worked our way through it and we managed to gross over a million dollars that year and made $15,000 net profit.”

That year, at age 26, Atkin became president of the company after his uncle stepped down.

“The company was a small, dinky company but it was a big deal to us, and we were taking it seriously,” he said. “How we go about doing things now is a lot more complicated, but the simplicity is still the same now as it was then. Take care of your customers and take care of your team.”

From the company’s beginnings with three planes and 20 employees, SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines, also under Atkin’s operations, has nearly 20,000 employees and a revolving fleet of about 716 planes, Atkin said.

SkyWest serves 186 cities in the United States and Canadian provinces and seven cities in Mexico and the Bahamas. ExpressJet serves 192 cities in 41 states, District of Columbia, Bahamas, Canada, Mexico, and Turks and Caicos. SkyWest carried 27.4 million passengers in 2013 and ExpressJet carried 33.2 million, according to information from SkyWest.

Marissa Snow, director of corporate communications and people programs at SkyWest, said Atkin’s commitment to his employees and customers is a large part of what has made the company successful.

In addition to the strong team of employees at SkyWest, Atkin said not being afraid to take risks and being persistent in the name of business also is part of the company’s success story.

“We had a capable bunch, and we’ve been able to pull off some things most people would think you couldn’t do,” he said. “We just stuck with it and we never gave up. There is a huge lesson in just plain persisting.”

Throughout his time as president and CEO, Atkin helped the company form partnerships with major airlines like United and Delta to help expand its reach for flights as a regional airline company, he said. He also helped bring in cutting edge airline engine technology to help the planes fly under a variety of temperatures and elevations.

Snow said Atkin’s commitment to taking calculated risks is what helped grow the company to its current success.

“(Jerry has been good to) be on the front end of new adaptations and continue to adapt and be able to foster that type of culture within (the company),” she said.

The company, and St. George, has changed in many ways over the years, Atkin said.

“It’s been like starting a new job every two years,” he said. “It’s been fun and it’s been challenging. It’s been fun to engage in the change and see what needs to be done differently.”

Moving forward, Atkin said he has a strong group of leaders working with him to help manage and operate SkyWest, which is allowing him to slowly take a step back from regular operations so he can spend more time with his family – wife, four children and five grandchildren.

“It puts the company in a good position for still having its needs met for the traveling public,” he said. “I love spending time with family and it’s been a good 40 years, a great 40 years in business, but a great time with the family, too.”

Follow Samantha Sadlier on Twitter, @SpectrumSadlier.