To truly understand why digital transformation is necessary in modern airports, just think about a common conversation that happens way too often between members of an airport’s landside operations staff:

“Do we have the latest drawing for that area?”

“I think so. There’s a copy on the shared drive.”

“Does it show the changes from the last renovation?”

“I’m not sure. Ask Mike. He’ll know.”

Every airport has a Mike.

Mike knows which drawing reflects what is actually in the field—not simply which file has the most recent date. He remembers why the equipment was installed differently from the original design, who performed the work, and where the final documentation might be hiding.

He may even remember the operational problem that started the whole thing.

Mike is extraordinarily valuable. He is also not particularly interested in changing how he works.

For years, he has kept things moving with marked-up drawings, familiar folders, email, spreadsheets and, most importantly, his memory. From his perspective, the process works. Someone asks a question, Mike gives them an answer, and everyone gets on with the day.

Then someone introduces a new technology and calls it “digital transformation.”

Mike may not see transformation. He may see more data entry, another password, unfamiliar screens, and a new set of rules created by someone who has never had to find a critical drawing at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon.

His resistance is not necessarily stubbornness. It may be experience.

Mike has seen improvement initiatives arrive with great enthusiasm and quietly disappear a few years later. He has entered the same information into multiple systems. He has watched technology get implemented without enough input from the people expected to use it.

He may have concluded that keeping his own records is the only way to make sure he can still do his job.

That makes Mike both essential to change and understandably skeptical of it.

Start by Asking Mike

The goal should not be to pry the folders from Mike’s hands. It should be to preserve what he knows while making his work easier.

If a new process simply gives him another place to enter information, it will struggle. If it helps him find the correct drawing faster, cuts down on interruptions, and saves him from explaining the same 12-year-old project decision for the tenth time, he may begin to see the appeal.

A good place to start is with a simple question:

“Mike, what information do people repeatedly come to you to find?”

His answer will quickly reveal where records are incomplete, difficult to trust, or disconnected from the way people actually work.

Then ask:

“What would make that information easier for you—and everyone else—to find?”

That changes the conversation. Mike is no longer being treated as the obstacle to modernization. He is being recognized as the person who knows where the current process falls apart.

Because he probably does.

Technology Is the Easy Part

No digital transformation can happen without Mike—or without all the people who rely on him.

Technology can create a structure for change, but employees determine whether that structure becomes part of daily operations. If Mike and his experienced colleagues do not trust the new process, they will keep using the methods that have worked for years. If everyone else continues calling Mike, the airport’s real workflow has not changed at all.

Mike and his colleagues do not need another presentation about everything the technology can do. They need to know what it will do for them.

Will it reduce interruptions? Will it make the right drawing easier to find? Eliminate duplicate entry? Preserve the story behind a decision? Help a new employee get up to speed faster? Make the next inspection, renovation, maintenance issue, or emergency response a little easier?

If that benefit is not clear, why would they change?

Experienced employees are often asked to contribute the most to a digital transformation while receiving the least obvious benefit. They are expected to document what they know, learn new workflows, untangle years of inconsistent information, and help everyone else adjust—all while doing their regular jobs.

To them, “digital transformation” can sound suspiciously like extra work for someone else’s benefit.

The value must be practical and personal. For Mike, it might mean fewer interruptions and fewer emergency searches through old folders. It might mean being able to take a vacation without remaining on call as the airport’s unofficial search engine.

For his colleagues, it can mean preserving their knowledge accurately—not oversimplifying it or losing it altogether. It also gives them the opportunity to shape processes based on how the airport actually operates.

That matters. These employees have spent years building expertise. Capturing that knowledge is not just documentation; it is a professional legacy.

Changing Both Sides of the Conversation

The people who rely on Mike also need a reason to change.

Asking Mike is fast, familiar, and comfortable. A new system will only replace that habit if finding the answer becomes easier—or at least more dependable—than calling him.

This is why adoption cannot be measured solely by counting training completions or system logins. Better questions are:

• Are employees using the technology to answer real operational questions?
• Can they locate trusted information without calling Mike?
• Do they know which source is authoritative?
• Are experienced employees contributing what they know?
• Has the new process eliminated any existing work?
• Is the information still being maintained six months later?

Those answers tell you whether the digital transformation has become part of airport operations—or whether you simply purchased technology.

Begin With the Work, Not the Features

Mike should not be invited into the project at the end and asked to approve a process designed without him.

He and his experienced colleagues should help define it. They know which information matters, where the exceptions occur, and which beautiful-looking workflow will fall apart as soon as it meets the real airport.

Ask them:

• What part of your job creates the most unnecessary effort?
• What information is hardest to find or trust?
• Which questions do people bring to you repeatedly?
• What information are you entering more than once?
• What would make you comfortable giving up your separate records?
• What is one task the new process should make easier right away?

Then show the technology through those problems. Do not begin with a tour of the features. Begin with Mike’s Tuesday afternoon.

Show how someone can find the latest drawing without interrupting him. Show how a field observation stays connected to the correct location and record. Show how a new employee can understand the history behind a decision without launching an airport-wide investigation.

Prove that the process can remove a burden before asking employees to embrace a bigger vision.

That is when digital transformation stops being something happening to employees and becomes something they are helping the airport build.

Mike does not have to love technology. He does not have to become the project’s biggest cheerleader. He simply needs to believe that the new approach and digital transformation respects his experience, solves a real problem, and will still be around after the implementation team leaves.

What Mike Knows

The importance of Mike’s participation becomes clear when we consider what experienced airport employees carry in their heads.

Mike may know:

• Which drawing or survey reflects actual conditions
• Why a design or operational decision was made
• Which field changes were never fully documented
• Where recurring maintenance problems appear
• How work in one area affects operations somewhere else
• Which contractor, airline, tenant, or consultant has missing information
• Which temporary workaround quietly became standard practice
• What previous teams tried—and why it did not work

This is more than individual expertise. It is part of the airport’s operational record.

Yet this knowledge is rarely managed with the same care as drawings, contracts, inspection records or asset information. It may live in personal folders, marked-up plans, emails, spreadsheets, handwritten notes or memories developed over decades.

Some of it may not exist anywhere else.

That makes institutional knowledge both incredibly valuable and incredibly vulnerable.

If Mike retires, changes roles, or is simply unavailable when an urgent question arises, the airport can lose the context that makes its formal records useful.

A drawing may show what was designed but not what was installed. A project file may contain the final decision but not the operational problem that shaped it. A maintenance record may document repeated repairs without identifying the pattern Mike noticed years ago.

The airport may still have the files, but it no longer has the whole story.

This is also why experienced employees can be protective of their personal records. They know where the official documentation is incomplete because they have spent years filling the gaps. Their methods are not just habits; they are often how the airport has compensated for weaknesses in its formal processes.

Preserving that knowledge cannot be a one-time interview scheduled two weeks before someone’s retirement party. It must become part of everyday work.

When Mike explains why a condition exists, connect that explanation to the location, asset, drawing, project or maintenance record. When a workaround becomes normal practice, document why it began and whether it is still needed. When a project changes field conditions, capture those changes in a form the next employee can find and understand.

The goal is not to record every thought Mike has ever had. It is to identify the knowledge that affects safety, continuity, maintenance, project delivery and decision-making—and give it a durable home.

Otherwise, your airport’s most valuable operational database remains one employee’s memory.

If your airport has a Mike—or perhaps several of them—stop by and meet the Graitec team at the AAAE Airport Operations & Technology Symposium in Oklahoma City. We would love to hear about your Mike and get you started on your digital transformation journey.