MARANA, AZ, September 18, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Steven E. Poerschmann has been selected for inclusion in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Mr. Poerschmann is an accredited airport executive and a retired U.S. Air Force command pilot whose most recent professional milestone came in October 2025, when he joined Lea+Elliott as a program director in the firm's Eastern Region office in Dulles, Virginia. Lea+Elliott supports airports and transit agencies worldwide, focusing on automated technologies from automated people mover (APM) systems to autonomous vehicles to heavy rail. Its APM work — the trains connecting terminals, concourses, rental car centers and parking facilities at major airports — spans planning, design, procurement, installation and operations and maintenance oversight. He leads teams of engineering and technical professionals who monitor, assess and report on system performance, ensuring these networks operate safely and reliably for millions of airport employees and travelers each year.
Before joining Lea+Elliott, Mr. Poerschmann served from 2020 to 2025 as senior director of airport operations and transit systems at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. His portfolio encompassed airside, landside and cargo operations, wildlife management, safety management systems, facility maintenance and custodial services contracts, and strategic oversight of the airport's automated transit systems. His tenure spanned the industry's steepest downturn and its recovery; by 2024 the airport was again handling more than 108 million passengers and nearly 800,000 aircraft operations a year — the world's busiest — with his operations staff inspecting and collaborating with local maintenance crews to sustain the runways, taxiways, signage and markings that safely carried those volumes amid continuous construction. Safety at that scale, in his view, is a collective responsibility, and he devoted comparable effort to developing the teams who carry it. He also sponsored the operations team that established the airport's unmanned aerial systems capability, examining practical drone applications at a busy airport including support for emergency response operations, airfield safety inspections, perimeter fence line security, construction oversight and special events.
From 2015 to 2019, Mr. Poerschmann served as assistant vice president for transportation management services at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, holding strategic responsibility for the airport's automated guideway transit system — upgrades and replacements, operations and maintenance contract renewals, and coordination with air carriers, federal partners and tenants on efficiency and customer experience. He was also responsible for the maintenance and procurement of DFW's vehicle fleet.
Mr. Poerschmann first came to Hartsfield-Jackson in 2007 as automated people mover manager, overseeing the City of Atlanta's automated guideway transit contract for the underground system connecting the airport's two terminals and six concourses. During his tenure the airport opened a second system linking the terminals to a new off-airport rental car center; the two were subsequently named the Plane Train and the SkyTrain. Shortly after that system opened in December 2009, he was elevated to director of aviation transportation systems, a position he held until 2015 and in which he led the coordination that kept the Plane Train running uninterrupted while it was extended to the Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal in 2013.
From 2009 to 2015, Mr. Poerschmann also served as a voting member of the Automated People Mover Standards Committee, hosted by the Transportation and Development Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, representing the City of Atlanta as the owner of two APM systems. Its voting membership is drawn in equal measure from system manufacturers, owners and industry professionals, and it sets the consensus standards governing the design, operation, maintenance and safety of automated people mover systems in the United States.
Mr. Poerschmann came to airport management after 24 years as a U.S. Air Force officer and pilot. Commissioned through Air Force ROTC on the day of his college graduation in May 1982, he began undergraduate helicopter training at Fort Rucker, Alabama, that September. He flew the UH-1 Huey and, later, the C-141 Starlifter and C-5 Galaxy, taking him worldwide in support of routine logistics, military exercises, humanitarian relief and contingency operations. He served as an airlift contingency plans officer at U.S. Air Forces in Europe, on the Air Force operations staff at the Pentagon, and as chief of Southwest Asia plans at U.S. Central Command Air Forces, retiring as a major in 2006.
Mr. Poerschmann earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Clemson University in 1982 and a Master of Business Administration from Webster University in 2006. He holds Federal Aviation Administration certification as a commercial pilot with instrument privileges for both helicopters and multi-engine aircraft. In 2013 he was accredited as an airport executive (A.A.E.) by the American Association of Airport Executives.
He maintains membership in the American Association of Airport Executives, the Military Officers Association of America and the Order of Daedalians, a fraternity of U.S. military pilots. He and his wife, Sheryl, raised guide dog puppies for several years — one at a time, each for 13 to 14 months, through four assignments, and often puppy sitting for other raisers — with Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Virginia and Guide Dogs of America in California, caring for each dog until it was ready for formal service-animal training. It demanded a discipline distinct from raising a family pet and reflected their conviction that helping another toward independence is among the most worthwhile things a family can do.
Persistence stands at the core of Mr. Poerschmann's approach. He learned early not to let other people's estimates of his potential discourage him — opinions are not facts — and that meaningful advancement requires uncomfortable action rather than waiting for conditions to improve. The most consequential decision of his career was leaving a secure and meaningful position that offered no further room to grow. When one opportunity closes another will emerge, he tells those he mentors but recognizing it calls for patience and the readiness to step forward.
Born in Havelock, North Carolina, Mr. Poerschmann is the third generation of his family to serve. His grandfather served with the U.S. Army in France during World War I; his father enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, earned his commission through Officer Candidate School in the early 1960s, and retired as a captain after 20 years as a communications and electronics officer spanning the Cold War and Vietnam. Raised by both parents to work hard and to treat others as he would wish to be treated, he has carried those values into life as a husband of 44 years, father of two and grandfather of three. He attributes whatever success he has attained to God's blessings and the support of his family, friends and colleagues.
Mr. Poerschmann remains fully engaged, with no intention of slowing down. He finds meaning in contributing to Lea+Elliott's growth, in helping colleagues and clients prepare for stewardship of the systems they will inherit, and in continuing to learn — most recently by building practical skills with artificial intelligence tools and demonstrating their value to those he serves.
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