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Michael J. Lotz is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Mesa and has been with the company since July 1998. He graduated from Iona College Hagen School of Business in New York City with a BBA degree in Financial Accounting in 1983. From 1983 to 1985 he started his career at John Brown Engineering in Connecticut as a junior accountant and after two years was assistant Corporate Controller. He began his aviation career not far from his home at LaGuardia Airport at New York Air in 1985 as the Maintenance Division Controller. When Continental Airlines acquired New York Air in 1987 Lotz went to Continental in Los Angeles and Houston Intercontinental as a Senior Analyst in the Purchasing and Materials Distribution Division. He was promoted to manager of finance and administration for the technical services division then was promoted to Director of Finance for the Western Region of Continental Airlines based out of Denver.
When Continental closed its Denver hub in 1994 Lotz was promoted to Senior Director of Contract Services and Airport administration based at the company's headquarters in Houston. In 1995 Lotz left Continental and joined Ornstein at Continental Express as Senior Director of purchasing and was later promoted to Vice President of Airport Operations. When Ornstein left the company to start new entrant Virgin Express in Brussels Belgium Lotz made the move and took over as COO. Together Ornstein and Lotz grew Virgin Express to 25 Boeing 737s in two short years and took the company public. Ornstein left Virgin Express in early 1998 to run Mesa Air Group as CEO. Lotz signed on as a consultant in July 1998 to help Ornstein start the turnaround of the troubled company. In January 1999 he was named COO of Mesa also serving a short stint as CFO. In June 2000 he was named president of Mesa. | 