If there’s one thing Sault Ste. Marie’s Terry Bos loves more than baseball, it’s numbers.
“I’ve always had passion and joy for working with numbers and statistics,” said Bos. “Since starting school, math was one of my strong subjects.”
When Bos started at Algoma University in 1993, he was taking business administration with the intention of transferring to Laurentian University in Sudbury to pursue sports administration. This plan didn’t last long. He fell in love with the program he was in, and took on a minor in economics instead.
He spent his time outside of school working for Buns Master Bakery, seemingly incongruous with his academic interests, but each aspect of his job allowed him to work with data to some extent; planning and carrying out his delivery route, working with customer accounts, even his baking stint required math and calculation skills.
Upon graduation in 1997, Bos spent a short time as a labourer working with steel, but was relieved to find a job in his field at the Sault Ste. Marie Airport in 1999, helping with the business plan.
Today, Bos spends his days managing people, projects and numbers, as the president and CEO of the airport. He’s taken on several different roles between then and now. From his planning role in 1999, he moved to finance management in 2002, began to manage the airport in 2004, became accountable executive in 2008, and finally, CEO in 2010.
“I’ve worked with all the budgeting, monthly financials, tracking passenger stats, cargo stats and funding applications,” said Bos. But even from his role at the top of the ladder, Bos has maintained his relationship with numbers.
“Certainly I thought I’d be in a management position and doing a lot of finance stuff. Luckily, the corporation has allowed me to maintain the financial portfolio, which is something I really enjoy working with,” said Bos.
Bos has seen some exciting numbers emerge in the past few years. The airport saw a record high number of 195,080 passengers in 2014. Last November, the airport hit a long-standing target: 200,000 passengers over a 12-month period. The airport is also near completing a $2-million terminal expansion that Bos said will ensure people have more time, space and amenities in the terminal.
Bos credits his educational background with much of his success at the airport.
“It’s been good to have an economic background,” said Bos. “Watching GDP and inflation — those kind of indicators you need to know to determine where your business is going to go,especially in aviation where we are tied to the economic ups and downs. When the economy is good, people travel more; when times are bad, businesses cut back.”
Bos has stayed active and continued his education in the industry. He served as president for the Airport Management Council of Ontario from 2009-2014, and will sit as the past president until November 2016. In 2014, he also became an internationally accredited airport executive. Bos’ research to gain accreditation focused on the cost discrepancy of flying in Canada versus the U.S., and on how lowering costs could increase the number of people who travel.
“It’s kind of like getting a master’s degree,” he said. “You write a paper, that gets published, then you go through an interview.” It’s research he’d like to see put into practice, especially at the Sault airport, which he said loses about 30,000 passengers a year to cheaper American flights.
Despite his active presence and upcoming plans at the airport, Bos knows how to leave work at work, but that doesn’t mean he leaves the numbers at work. Since his school days of math excellence, he’s also enjoyed sports, and baseball, in particular. He describes himself as a stats fan, and closely follows Major League Baseball.
“I played baseball when I was in school, and softball since I couldn’t play baseball anymore,” said Bos.
He stays involved in his community sports, too. “Now I coach my son’s team, tracking the numbers.”
There’s no escaping the numbers for Bos, and he’s just fine with that.
