ORLANDO, Fla. – The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority reached across the country for its next chief executive officer.
GOAA announced Wednesday that Lance Lyttle, managing director of aviation for the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, was selected as CEO.
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Pending contract negotiations, Lyttle could begin serving as early as next month, taking over for retiring CEO Kevin Thibault.
Lyttle would oversee one of the busiest airports in the country, Orlando International Airport, with passenger volume exceeding 57 million. He would also oversee Orlando Executive Airport.
Both airports are in the midst of major improvement projects as well, something he has experience with.
Lyttle has been managing director at Sea-Tac since 2015. He helped oversee a multi-year renovation of the airport costing $5 billion, which included concourse expansions, safety upgrades, an upgraded baggage handling system, and an automated parking guidance system.
Lyttle also weathered a crisis last August when a ransomware attack hit the airport’s systems.
The attack led to outages in baggage handling, ticketing, passenger display boards, and the airport website. The hackers were also able to get access to some individuals' private data, but they were not able to affect critical safety systems.
Lyttle testified before a U.S. Senate committee last September, saying that the airport had robust cybersecurity infrastructure with a well-trained staff, which is why they were able to respond to the attack so quickly.
“In accordance with a TSA mandate, airports and airlines have been reporting cybersecurity incidents to CISA, and there are opportunities to improve the twoway sharing of information,” Lyttle told the committee. “The aviation industry benefits greatly from information about common cybersecurity incidents, and we need to make sure we are optimizing our security tools, talent, and properly resourcing our cyber ecosystems to focus mitigation efforts.”
Before Sea-Tac, Lyttle held leadership positions at the Houston Airport System and at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.
Lyttle has bachelor’s degrees in physics and computer science and a master’s degree in management information from the University of West Indies.