Timothy E. Hoeksema

Timothy E. Hoeksema (born January 25, 1947)^[1] was the chairman of Midwest Air Group who transformed the air fleet of the Kimberly Clark paper mill company into Midwest Airlines. He retired in July 2009 after the company was sold to Republic Airways Holdings after running into financial trouble.^[2]

Hoeksema was a flight instructor at the University of Illinois at Champaign in 1968. Hoeksema joined Kimberly-Clark in 1969 serving as first officer of the company's air fleet -- the same year that Kimberly-Clark started its K-C Aviation subsidiary. He graduated summa cum laude from Western Michigan University in 1972 with a bachelor of science in aviation engineering technology.^[3]

In 1974, he became chief pilot for Kimberly-Clark. In 1977 after receiving a master’s degree in business administration while on a Kimberly-Clark scholarship to the University of Chicago Executive Program. he was named director of air transportation for the company and president of K-C Aviation.^[3]

In 1984 he was responsible for transforming K-C Aviation into a commercial company Midwest Express which started out with two DC-9 planes.

In 1988 he was named head of Kimberly Clark's transportation sector.

In 1995 the airline's parent Midwest Airgroup was listed on the American Stock Exchange.

In 2007-2008 he fought a takeover attempt by AirTran Airlines in the "Save the Cookie" campaign (a take off on the company's signature service of providing on board baked chocolate chip cookies to its passengers) before ultimately agreeing to a private takeover from a consortium led by TPG Capital with a minority investment by Northwest Airlines. He remained the chief executive of the airline under its new owners. TPG bought the company for $452 million in 2008. In July 2009 it sold it for $31 million.^[4]

He is also a director at the Marcus Corporation^[5][5] and is on the Board of Trustees of the Medical College of Wisconsin.

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