Executive excellence

Departing Southwest Airlines boss ranks among America's top CEOs

Southwest CEO Gary Kelly at opening of Hobby Airport international concourse

Gary Kelly is one of the top 10 CEOs, according to Glassdoor.

Photo courtesy of Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines Chairman and CEO Gary C. Kelly is stepping away from the head honcho role in early 2022, but he's leaving with some new accolades from his employees.

Kelly ranks fourth on Glassdoor’s new list of the top 100 CEOs for 2021. He received a 98 percent approval rating from Southwest Airlines employees who shared anonymous feedback on the Glassdoor platform, which publishes reviews and salary information for employers.

“Over the past year, company leaders around the world faced unprecedented challenges to support employees during the COVID-19 crisis. Now, the employees have spoken and it’s clear that these CEOs excelled and found new ways to support their people when the world of work flipped upside down,” Christian Sutherland-Wong, Glassdoor’s CEO, says in a news release.

Kelly is no stranger to the list; in 2019, he ranked 35th in Glassdoor’s annual Employees’ Choice Awards.

Kelly has served as the Dallas-based airlines' CEO since 2004, leading Southwest through some of the industry's most turbulent times. He recently announced he'd be transitioning into the role of executive chairman, to be replaced by executive VP Robert Jordan, effective Feb. 1, 2022.

The Dallas area has one other entry in the top-100 list. Sean Yalamanchi, chairman and president of Richardson-based Infovision, ranks 55th-ranked on the Glassdoor list. He earned a 93 percent approval rating from employees.

Other Texas executives appearing on the new Glassdoor list are:

Third-ranked Dr. Peter Pisters, president of Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center (99 percent approval).
Seventh-ranked Charles Butt, CEO of San Antonio-based H-E-B (96 percent).
60th-ranked Dr. Marc Boom, president and CEO of Houston Methodist (93 percent approval).
76th-ranked Worthing Jackman, president and CEO of The Woodlands-based Waste Connections (92 percent approval).

Notably, H-E-B's Central Market division is headquartered in Dallas. H-E-B customers around Texas adore the San Antonio-based grocery chain, which is rapidly expanding its presence in Dallas-Fort Worth with the building of three new stores.

“Under [CEO Charles Butt's] leadership, the desire to constantly innovate has led to new store concepts, the creation of one of the most successful private-label programs in the country, and the commitment to build out state-of-the-art digital products and services to complement H-E-B’s world-class stores,” the grocery chain said in a 2019 news release about Butt.

Butt is also recognized as an advocate for public education and literacy.

The Butt family is among the richest families in the country, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $17.8 billion. Florence Butt, Charles’ grandmother, founded the family-owned business in 1905.

lists rankings

income analysis

This is the family income needed for one parent to stay home in Texas

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

With costs to raise a child soaring over $20,000 a year in Texas, some households might decide to have one parent work while the other stays at home to raise their child.

The cost of raising a child has ballooned in major metros like Dallas-Fort Worth, forcing many families to weight the choice between paying for child care or having one parent stay home full-time.

A recent analysis from SmartAsset determined the minimum income one parent needs to earn to support their partner staying at home to raise one child in all 50 states. In Texas, that amount is just under $75,000.

The study used the MIT Living Wage Calculator to compare the annual living wages needed for a household with two working adults and one child, and a household with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child. The study also calculated how much it would cost to raise a child with two working parents based on factors such as "food, housing, childcare, healthcare, transportation, incremental income taxes and other necessities."

A Texas household with one working parent would need to earn $74,734 a year to support their stay-at-home partner and their child, the report found. If both parents worked in the household, it would require an additional $10,504 in annual income to raise their child.

SmartAsset said the cost to raise a child in Texas in a two-working-parent household adds up to $23,587. Raising a child in North Texas, however, is slightly more affordable. A separate SmartAsset study from June 2025 determined it costs $22,337 to raise a child in Dallas-Fort Worth.

In the report's ranking of states with the highest minimum income needed to support a family with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child, Texas ranked 32nd on the list.

In other states like Massachusetts where raising a child can cost more than $40,000 a year, the report's author says families will look for ways to reduce any financial burdens.

"This often includes considerations around who’s going to work in the household, and whether young children will require paid daycare services while parents are occupied," the report said. "With tradeoffs abound, many parents might seek to understand the minimum income needed to keep the family afloat while allowing the other parent to stay home to raise a young child."

The top 10 states with the lowest minimum income threshold to support a three-person family on one income are:

West Virginia – $68,099
Arkansas – $68,141
Mississippi – $70,242
Kentucky – $70,408
North Dakota – $70,949
Oklahoma – $71,718
Ohio – $72,114
South Dakota – $72,218
Alabama – $72,238
Nebraska – $72,966

texas income smartasset family