Potter, the former Postmaster General, is still the President and CEO of MWAA. He was hired in the wake of the nepotism, contracting and myriad other scandalous activities that were investigated by the FBI and Congress and sometimes correctly documented by the Washington Psst and other news outlets. He has stuck around longer than a few of the previous CEOs because the Board believes he has shepherded MWAA quite well through the last 10 years or so. But, in some ways and not others, meet the new boss, same as the old boss - maybe just a little smarter about it. He also brought a host of USPS "wunderkind" with him to MWAA - which gave insight and clarity to some folks as to why the USPS has the reputation that it does. Which now has rubbed off on MWAA.

The travel scandal - was primarily a Board member using MWAA to pay first class fares for personal business /vacation trips. Lots of nepotism in hiring practices - especially in hiring a) direct family members, and b) "nieces" (hee hee) of sitting DC Councilmembers to jobs for which the candidate did not meet the minimum qualifications (or to jobs with no position description at all) were wholly unqualified; time grifting; hiring former Board members to no-show jobs at high-six-figure salaries and lying to health insurance companies about pre-existing conditions. Oh, and lots of contracting shenanigans, like hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to board members, employees, and to companies run by family members of employees. One executive was allowed to resign in lieu of being fired and they let him take thousands of dollars of corporate artwork (which he had MWAA purchase from his friend's gallery).

Here is the fun reading of the DOT IG report: http://www.oig.dot.gov/library-item/5979


it is a much better organization now with an organizational culture more dedicated to actually being stewards of the public asset. Of course, since not a few executives have as their only corporate experience that of working for USPS, there is still lots of room for improvement. (but really, what organization that really has no serious, accountable oversight body, couldn't improve?)