The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board of directors elected Warner H. Session to serve as its next chairman and Earl Adams Jr. to serve as vice chairman at its meeting Wednesday. The board also re-elected Monica Hargrove as secretary to the Authority. All three will serve one-year terms in office beginning in January 2018.

Earl Adams Jr., Monica Hargrove and Warner H. Session

Warner H. Session, chairman, is the founder of the Session Law Firm, which offers its clients legal, government relations, and business consulting services in such matters as corporate transactions, government procurement, small business development, regulatory compliance and real estate. Session is former counsel to the House Government Activities and Transportation Subcommittee where he handled aviation, procurement and telecommunications issues. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Georgetown University Law Center, and is admitted to practice before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. Session is an appointee of the mayor of the District of Columbia.

Earl Adams Jr., vice chairman, is a partner in the litigation group of Saul Ewing LLP. His practice focuses on representing clients before federal, state and local government and with helping clients develop transactions involving public-private partnerships. Before joining Saul Ewing LLP, Adams served as chief of staff to former Lt. Governor Anthony Brown of Maryland and, prior to becoming a lawyer, he worked in the airline industry as a revenue management market analyst for American Airlines in Dallas, Texas. In addition to serving on the Airports Authority board, Adams serves as a director on the boards of the Bowie State University Board of Visitors, SEED School of Maryland, the Prince George’s County Parks Foundation and the Canton Railroad Company. He is also an officer of the Boston College Law School Alumni Assembly and served on the 2008 Obama-Biden Veterans Affairs Transition team. Adams is an appointee of the governor of Maryland.

Monica Hargrove, secretary, reports to the 17-member board of directors, carrying out its official duties and managing day-to-day operations, including serving as a liaison to Airports Authority senior management. Hargrove joined the Airports Authority in 2013 as deputy general counsel. A veteran aviation attorney, she previously served as general counsel at Airports Council International – North America and associate counsel at US Airways. Prior to that, she was a trial attorney in the antitrust division at the U.S. Department of Justice.

During the meeting, Airports Authority executives and members of the board acknowledged outgoing chairman William Shaw McDermott for his contributions to the Airports Authority as chairman over the past two years and since he joined the board in 2013.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority operates Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, the Dulles Airport Access Highway and the Dulles Toll Road and also manages construction of the Silver Line project, a 23-mile extension of the Washington region’s Metrorail public transit system through Fairfax County and into Loudoun County, Virginia. More than 45 million passengers a year pass through the two airports.