January 2026 Employee of the Month: Traveler brought to tears after MIA employee reunites her with precious items in lost suitcase

Just before the winter holidays, Miami International Airport Terminal Operations Specialist Concha Gillen, who works in MIA’s Lost and Found Office, received a misplaced suitcase that had some extra special contents inside: someone’s last will and testament; old family photos; pieces of jewelry; and other legal documents.

Since the bag had no contact information on the outside or inside, Gillen began scanning through the contents to find some way of contacting the owner. She finally found an email address on one of the documents and gave that a try. Soon after, Gillen received a reply from the owner, who was overcome with emotion because the items in the suitcase were truly priceless to her.

“When I received Ms. Gillen’s email, I cried,” the owner said in her commendation letter to MIA. “I was traveling to Ecuador for a ribbon-cutting of my childhood home, which my mother had donated to a family foundation named in my father’s honor. Ms. Gillen was able to locate, among other documents that were in the bag, my husband’s email address. Only a kind and caring person dedicated to her job would go the extra mile. Part of the ribbon-cutting ceremony was to enlarge the childhood photos of my father and other family pictures in the suitcase so they could be displayed at the foundation office. When I spoke with Ms. Gillen, she said that she knew that this was a special suitcase because of the papers that it contained, as well as the memories that would be lost if the photographs were not returned to me.”

Gillen then scheduled a phone call with the traveler to review all the items in the suitcase and arrange for its delivery to her.

“The next day, when we spoke with Ms. Gillen, I cried again,” said the passenger. “As we talked, I explained to her that the luggage also had several pieces of jewelry with great sentimental value. She had not previously opened the other bags in the suitcase. As we spoke, she opened the plastic bags and found all the jewelry I had described to her. I cried again and thanked her continuously. I sent her my blessings. A couple of days later, the bag arrived at our house with all the contents untouched. That was a miracle.”

Because Gillen went the extra mile to reconnect the passenger with their precious cargo and provide a happy ending to their travel story through MIA, she was named the airport’s January 2026 Employee of the Month.