CEO of the Year: Jeff Potter: Frontier Airlines' 'informal nice guy' piloted company through turbulent times.

• Author: Graham, Sandy
• Position: Cover Story

Editor's note: Jeff Potter is ColoradoBiz magazine's CEO of the Year, chosen for our December issue to cap what sometimes can be a long, hard year of business. Four finalists in our competition are profiled on page 22. The choice of CEO was made by the editors of the magazine after a review of about 20 CEO performances over the past year, and appearing in one of six ColoradoBiz lists of Top Companies, including women-owned and minority-owned firms, private and public Colorado companies. The most important factor in making the choice of the winner was, as it is during our selection of the 25 Most Powerful Colorado business people in January, significant action taken by the candidate during the year of selection. Potter deserves the accolade. He fought off some of the worst economic conditions in the history of the airline industry in order to become profitable and chosen for this honor. I hope you agree with our choice, and I hope you enjoy reading about what he has done.--Robert Schwab, Editor, ColoradoBiz

Jeff Potter planned to be a Marine until a job he had cleaning jets at the old Frontier Airlines in Spokane, Wash., lured him from college and to the ticket counter of the airline. He used that counter as the first rung in a ladder that has brought him to the top of one of the country's most successful airlines, the new Frontier. Potter, president and chief executive officer of Frontier Airlines and the first ColoradoBiz CEO of the Year, says he was always captivated by what he calls the "magic of flight," but never expected to lead an airline to profitability through one of the nation's toughest business environments in airline industry history. "I thought my life would be in the military," recalls Potter, son of a Vietnam veteran. But when Potter's college dropped its military program, the would-be jarhead was left adrift.

He was cleaning those jet airlines on the graveyard shift for the "old" Frontier in Spokane when the boss of his maintenance crew encouraged him to apply for a ticket agent's job in Oakland, Calif. "So I went home and told my mom and dad I wanted to quit college and go be a ticket agent for $7 a hour," Potter said.

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Printing boarding passes was hardly a parent's dream job, but Potter's parents were supportive. "My dad said, 'Give yourself a year, and hopefully you'll find something you're very passionate about,'" Potter recalled. "I knew within a month or so that (the ticket agent's job) was something I really enjoyed."

He never went back to college. Instead, he began a circuitous climb to the top of the new Frontier, a path that brought him into the new company, then out of it, and back again--this time to run it. "I could never have envisioned where I'd end up," he said.

Potter more than enjoys the airline business. He thrives in the atmosphere.

Building on the legacy of the new Frontier's co-founder and...