Title: Deputy Director for Finance and Administration
Firm: Sacramento County Department of Airports
Age: 34
Chris Wimsatt is leading efforts on the Sacramento County Department of Airports' $1.3 billion capital improvement program.
Two years into his job as deputy director for finance and administration, Chris was nominated to be a Rising Star for his work on the capital improvement program.
"One of the reasons I was brought on board is because we were going to need to do significant capital raising," Chris said. "That is one thing I was excited to do and felt strongly I had the background to do."
Prior to his current role, Chris held the position of division manager for airport finance and administration at the city of Dayton, Ohio's Department of Aviation.
"At SMF, we have experienced pretty significant passenger growth," Chris said, referring to the airport code for Sacramento International Airport.
With double-digit passenger growth ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, the airport was experiencing growing pains. As the pandemic pressures have eased, the airport has returned to previous passenger growth patterns, he said.
"We needed more gates, more parking — we are basically out of parking — and we had customer service components we needed to upgrade," Chris said.
The rental car companies were located far enough away from the airport that customers had to be bused. Part of the plan is to build a $390 million facility closer to the terminals. The airport department also plans to build a $140 million passenger walkway to complement the people mover linking Terminal B with its concourse and build a 5,000-space parking garage.
"We have to reroute how traffic moves through the airport," Chris said. "We have two ground transportation areas and plan to consolidate that into one between two terminals."
The plan also adds six to eight gates to concourse B.
He is in the midst of raising capital, working to line up a mix of revenue bonds, federal grants and low-interest loans through the TIFIA program.
"We are marching down the road, but none of it is set in stone," Chris said.
