Mike Tully
President and CEO, AAA Arizona

As president and CEO of AAA Arizona, Mike Tully has a keen interest in getting the state back on the road to prosperity. That probably explains why for the past seven years Tully, who joined AAA Arizona in 1998 as chief financial officer, has been a member of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council’s Finance Committee.

“GPEC’s role in our community is critical,” Tully says. “Attracting high-quality jobs to our state improves our health and economic performance, and makes the state a more attractive place for residents, as well as people moving to our beautiful state. As a membership organization representing nearly 800,000 people, AAA has a vested interest in the livelihood of Arizona.”

In addition to Tully’s position on the Finance Committee, AAA Arizona has a representative on the GPEC board of directors. That’s just part of the relationship.

“From a business perspective, we have used GPEC as a resource when we evaluated expansion opportunities, moving a large portion of our California operations to Arizona,” Tully says. “GPEC was invaluable in our ultimate decision, which resulted in nearly 800 new jobs being brought to our state.”
GPEC’s mission to create a competitive, vibrant, diverse and self-sustaining regional economy is critical to all of Arizona’s industries, Tully says.

“Ensuring that Arizona continues to improve the diversity of high-paying quality jobs is more obvious than ever, as seen by our recent recession,” he says. “Our precipitous decline as the No. 1 job growth state to No. 50 is symptomatic of our lack of industry diversity.”

Tully has been instrumental in driving the tremendous growth of AAA over the past decade, including expansion of its membership, financial services, insurance and travel operations. Prior to joining AAA, Tully owned an export finance company that arranged structured trade finance transactions for exporters throughout the United States.

The AAA executive has deep Arizona roots, having earned his Bachelor of Science degree in finance in 1987, and a master’s in business administration in 1991, both from Arizona State University. In 2007, he graduated from the advanced management program at Harvard Business School. Tully also holds a CPA certification.

As for travel trends in Arizona, Tully says the future remains murky.

“Our short-term forecast is flat, although shorter trips and drive trips continue to be popular,” he says. “While business travel is picking up in many areas of the country, it has yet to rebound in the Southwest.”

Likewise, international travel to Arizona continues to be weak, which hurts even more because international travelers generally spend four to five times the amount of money as domestic visitors.

www.aaaaz.com

Arizona Business Magazine

February 2010