CATCHING MY LATEST MAGAZINE INTERVIEW!

Air Disaster Recovery

(Photo: Kenyon International)

Since 1994, I've been interviewing Chief Executive Officers of airlines all over the United States. I've been a very lucky guy, and I know it. I have enjoyed access to places where a vast majority of the public will never visit. But magazine credentials aside, these visits have been fascinating and insightful. The bulk of my work lies in the preparation and research of an article and interview. In previous BLOG Posts, I have described some of the wonderful people I have met and some of the circumstances I experienced.

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The reinvestigation into the accident that claimed the life of rock legend Rick Nelson haunted me for over 20 years. My best buddy and I were to have attended his New Years Eve Show in Dallas the night his Douglas DC-3 caught fire in-flight and made an emergency landing in DeKalb, Texas where Rick, his fiancee' and his band tragically lost their lives. Something never quite sat well with me about that event, and so I was led to review the forensic files of the victims, the National Transportation Safety Board Report, and the maintenance files of the aircraft involved in the disaster.

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When I think back to my interview with Astronaut and airline executive Colonel Frank Borman in a small airplane hangar in Las Cruces, New Mexico just days before 9/11, I can remember thinking afterwards how proud my Dad would have been that I landed this assignment, had he lived. From 2002 to 2006, I tracked the reports of the Indentured Trustee to bondholders of the Eastern Airlines Liquidating Trust in San Francisco. Glen Langdon, the Indentured Trustee could not believe that anyone in media would find his job interesting. But over time as we communicated, stories started pouring out that I think surprised even Glen. Some of them read like a Bruce Willis "Die Hard" movie script with dangerous confrontations and a feared kidnapping in a foreign country! I love people and I love visiting with them. If you click-on my feature "THE INTERVIEW" on this page, you'll read in short order my philosophy to approaching a Guest. This came from my radio and television experience and I must credit Andy McCollum in Dallas for teaching me this technique. I was a Guest on his FM Radio show called "Focus" twice and he was the best interviewer I had ever met. In fact, after you become interviewed as a Guest 47 times on radio, television and newspapers as I have in my young life, you get the hang of what people want and who you are in relation to the subject at hand. And that lends a wonderful authenticity to whatever subject we happen to have under discussion. In a delightful change of pace, I have been able to continue interviewing different personalities here on my BLOG Page and more Guests will be arriving soon!

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Our August edition of Airways magazine (pictured above) is coming soon to a Barnes & Nobles, Borders Bookstore and other fine newsstands near you. In fact, I passed an excellent outdoor newsstand in Encino, California recently where our magazine was being perused by a potential customer. We are truly international in our worldwide distribution, thus the moniker: "A Global Review of Commercial Flight". The people I interview are actively engaged in life in a way that serves others. While my current article is a delicate subject, it was in the discussion stage for years. I simply felt that it was important for people to understand what goes on "behind the scenes" when an airline tragedy strikes. It is also my hope that my visit with Bob Jensen in Houston will accentuate what positive steps we can take to help prevent airline tragedies in the future. I hope you find this interesting. Back in a wink!