Today, fully retired
in Palm Desert, California, I receive my pension check from the Boeing
Aircraft Corporation. When I left Douglas, I did not go to work for Boeing
but, in the long haul, Boeing consumed the McDonnell Douglas Corporation
and assumed my retirement responsibilities. It could have been the other
way around but, as described in the story, the few opportunities were
lost. I am sure there is alot of meaning in this story and if it were
to be relived, things could have been different; of course, that is everyones
story. My hardest decision that had the greatest ramification on my life,
so it seemed, was to leave Douglas at age fifty-five. But like Barbara
has said, if I stayed, would I have survived.
Production of MD products
are dwindling, the MD-90 being the last of the DC-9 stretches; the MD-11
shortly to become history. The only new aircraft coming out of Long Beach,
the Boeing 717(MD-95), has presently only two purchasers, AirTran and
Trans World Airline. This is the aircraft that I needed in Australia in
1983 - 110 passengers, advanced Rolls Royce engine, and improved wing
and cockpit.
After retirement and
at the request of a friend, I wrote a paper, Attachment (1991), describing
the need for the 100-passenger aircraft. This is essentially what became
the Boeing 717, an excellent aircraft, if it is not too late.
The impact of travel
on my family can only be explained by them. My goal was to stay in domestic
marketing which provided travel during the week when needed, and I was
always home on weekends. When I was home during the week, I was home by
five-thirty, a respectable time for a career salesman.
The hardest time,
and I think Barbara would back me up on this, was during the Braniff campaign,
1968-1970. It was intense and it consumed every week during this two-year
time period. The hardest part was the empty feeling from not getting Braniff
to move ahead on the DC-10 program and then to miss on the DC-8 because
the tooling was gone, after all the effort and time away from the family.
In addition to just
being gone, there were times that being home would have provided support
when needed. Receiving a call at the airport just prior to departing for
Hawaii, to be told your son has stuck a metal pipe into his throat, or
prior to a meeting at Northwest Airlines getting a similar call, saying
your son had severed his Achilles Tendon, bicycling to the beach with
surfboard in hand. Each time telling my wife that it would do me no good
to come home as I was not licensed to practice medicine. It was the correct
answer, but it did seem rather ruthless at the time. My son survived both
incidences.
Animals were not a
success story in our family, at least when I was traveling. Carrie and
Craig each had a hampster which was normal for children of their age.
They kept them in a cage which the hampsters seemed to enjoy. One day
they went to the movies with their mother and left the cage in the shade
in the back yard. They returned later to find two dead hampsters. They
were in the shade when they left, but they soon had to endure the noon
day sun. Hampsters in their fur coats do not do well in full summer sun.
Barbara and the kids buried the little animals in the back yard with full
honors and tears only to have our dog Can Can, a French poodle, dig them
up each time. This left a lasting affect on everybody and today makes
a sad story, humorous.
Sad to say, Can Can
was killed when Carrie inadvertently left the door from the house to the
garage open. The garage door was also open. Can Can ran into the street
and was hit by a Cadillac. Needless to say, when dad returned from his
travels, he was confronted with sad tales of woe.
Barbara endured the
Sylmar earthquake of 1971 in bed. She had recently had a hysterectomy
and was home recovering when the quake hit. I was in Dallas. Luckily I
was able to get a call through, as I had placed a call to Barbara almost
at the same time the quake occurred. This took a lot of pressure off as
Barbara responded positively, but it did shake her. Having her parents
staying with us at the time was of great assurance.
The best part of all
was being able to include Barbara in my travels. This was frowned upon
by many of my supervisors, but we did it anyway. We were able to see many
places that would not be available to many people. Barbara was a plus
wherever she went and the airline people took to her when we entertained.
She never put Douglas Aircraft in a compromising position. It made my
doing business a lot easier. I never understood why companies did not
let more wives travel. At least, in my case, Barbara was an advantage;
with other salesmen it may not have been a positive.
When I moved into
International Sales in 1983, our kids were grown up and we both were willing
to move onto another direction, knowing how static the Domestic market
had become. With frequent travel miles, opportunities to travel to some
of the South Pacific and Asia countries would become available. I did
not realize how challenging and frustrating it was to deal with such a
variety of countries, people, and politics.
It may seem like I
was unsuccessful in my two-year stint, but I look at it as one of the
most exhilarating experiences, and I shook the tree as hard as I could.
The roots were too long, and I would have had to have been there a lot
sooner to shape the tree.
The Pacific and Asia
area was the most pleasant time that I spent at Douglas Aircraft other
than my times with Hawaiian and North Central. You are on your own, and
you have to make most of the decisions. Unmarried and twenty-five would
be the way to take over this territory and spend the rest of your life
working it, only if the company stands behind you.
Nothing lasts forever,
starting with carriers like West Coast, melted into Airwest that included
Bonanza and Pacific Airlines, consumed by Republic that was made up of
North Central and Southern Airlines, eaten by Northwest. Frontier faded
into history when purchased at the doorstep of bankruptcy. Braniff drained
Boeing and Pratt and Whitney of their relief fund, then sank into history
and closed the door. Air California, pride of Orange County, California,
is now a speck in the American Airlines system. Trans Texas to Texas International
is now a part of Continental Airlines.
Hawaiian still flies
the flag in the Island along with Aloha. Jack Magoon got into the coffee
business after losing the airline, brought on by a financial crisis, that
everyone in the airline business was having. He became quite successful
at the coffee growing business. I understand he has retired from this
venture. Jack did what he wanted to do, and that was to give the Magoon
name a serious presence in the Islands. Though the Magoon name was a part
of Hawaii, being the owner of the airline gave him the stature, at least
while he was Owner and President. I have the deepest respect for Jack,
not for being the greatest airline genius, but for being a class act,
always thinking of the Islands and the Hawaiian tradition. Jack read me
the riot act many a time over some of the things Douglas was doing and
each time I would offer Jack my job and he would back off. I would enjoy
having lunch with him again at the Pacific Club, anytime. Jack deserved
more than having the airline taken away from him.
Here, I must relate
a funny story that includes Jack. Early in my sales effort at Hawaiian
and my learning to play golf, Jack took me to play at the famous Wailea
golf club of which Jack was a member. He had given me some Hawaiian Airline
golf balls. In my early stages of golf, I had a slice that challenged
a boomerang. I was smart enough not to use the Hawaiian Airline golf balls;
Jack did not know this. I stood at the tee and swung mightily and drove
the ball on an arc that led into the condominiums, $450,000 and up (1972
dollars); Jack let out a grunt. A second shot, like radar the ball went
through the same air the first one had gone, a grunt. At this point, I
informed Jack that I was not using Hawaiian golf balls, a sigh of relief.
The end was bitter
and frustrating. No one knew what had transpired to make me walk from
a position that had been my life for 22 successful years. No one asked
and it seemed that no one cared, so it was done. That is when I etched
in stone the title of this book "Nothing is Forever."
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