Inspiration

Having an international airport 50 miles from your place of work allows for good “think-“ or “talk-time” when you’re making the trip.  I picked up Maya Angelou mid-morning and we were due back for a lunch by noon. What a warm, gracious and soft spoken lady she was. She didn’t know me at all but immediately after we connected, we were talking like old friends. When people of her stature are as interested in you as they are in themselves, it’s a pleasant and special encounter.

I found out early on that when you are open and vocal about your concerns with the way a non-profit organization is being run, it’s not too long before you’re more involved.  The Distinguished Visitor Series was an incredible opportunity to bring luminaries to a small mid-western town with a big reputation, like Columbus, Indiana. After attending a couple of the evenings in the Series, I wrote a long letter about how I thought the experience could be improved. Before I knew it, I was president of DVS and regularly making the trip to the airport to spend a day or two with amazing people like Maya Angelou.

She had a luncheon with local VIP’s, stops at two schools to speak with students, dinner with business executives and then a presentation to the public in the evening.  The transitions were flawless. She seemed to be able to speak everyone’s language. Her understanding of the business world and politics was uncanny and when meeting with students, they were rapt with her words and the poems she chose to share.

It was at one of the schools that she gave me that pearl of advice that I have carried with me since that time.  We were talking about speaking to the children and how she felt that we don’t give them enough credit for how much they understand. That conversation turned to writing and she said, “I never use big words. They confuse us all. If a third-grader understands what we write then our point is much better made.” It’s hard to disagree with that.

In her evening presentation, she read extensively from “I know why the caged bird sings”, which was the first of several autobiographies that she wrote during her life.  In summing up that night, she said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said; people will forget what you did; but they will never forget how you made them feel.” I wrote that in the reporter’s notebook that I always carry and have never forgotten it.

The drive back to the airport the next morning was fun. We covered a lot of subjects. When I asked her if she watched much television, she said, “I do watch re-runs of “Star Trek”. Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, is a good friend.  Watching her makes me feel comfortable and happy.” We parted as friends with a handful of experiences in common.

I recently added an evening with our latest inaugural poet Richard Blanco, at the Seattle Public Library, to those personally inspiring moments in my life. But Maya Angelou, also an inaugural poet, was my first, and that, for me, is a cherished memory that will always hold a special spot in my heart. She was an incredible person and a devout American. Her passing leaves a void but her words will be with us forever. Such a legacy in this world is unrivaled. Rest in peace, Maya.

Memorial Day and then some...

We must never forget the reason for Memorial Day. It’s a remembrance of all those who have died in military service for our country. The day itself is the last of a three-day weekend that has several meanings. It’s the unofficial end of winter and the beginning of the summer season. It’s a celebration of family with picnics and barbecues, water skiing, sailboat racing, softball and more.

There’s one other part of of the Memorial Day weekend that came back to me this year, during my travels.  I like to cruise bookstores if I’m without a meeting or a client dinner when I’m on the road.  On one such evening, I came across a book called “Moments in Time”. Mostly a picture book from the archives of Time Magazine (thank goodness it’s hard copy weekly is still hanging in there), it revisits many of the significant benchmarks of the last century.

Hardly a book where I expected to find a photo of yours truly. But as I leafed through it, there was a picture that gave me the same jolt I felt when the incident occurred. It was Memorial Day weekend at what is known as the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”, The Indianapolis 500. With my folks being from Indiana, no matter where my military father was stationed, we came back many times for Memorial Day to go to the big race. And it is indeed a spectacle.

The only rivals for "the 500" in the world of auto racing are the Monaco Grand Prix and 24 Hours at LeMans. The three make up auto racing’s triple crown and only one person, Britain’s Graham Hill, has won all three events. Over 300,000 enthusiasts go to the race and over a million show up in the month of May to witness the prep and qualifying.

Like any large scale event, "the 500" has its nuances. There’s Carb Day with carburetion testing to watch (all about those engines). Then there is qualifications when the field of 33 cars is selected.  The 500 Festival just before the big race has many special events sprinkled through the early part of May.  The race itself is over in the blink of an eye today. With average speeds over 200 miles per hour, in little more than two hours, it’s history.

If you have "Hoosier" roots, as I do, "the 500" is as familiar to you as high school basketball. Highlights for me were when my father was the chairman of the 500 Festival (local hero returns and all that). And then when I worked for diesel engine maker Cummins Engine Company, I was selected to head up the Mechanics Banquet that recognized the masters who keep the cars running at peak performance for 500 miles. Cummins has a history of placing diesel engines in race cars, even winning the pole position (first car in the first row). Never been done again.I still have my 500 Committee blazer...it no long fits...but there's always hope.

The race can be viewed from many vantage points and I’ve been able to sample most of them over the years.  I’ve seen it from the finish line grandstands, from the suite boxes, from the pits and “gasoline alley” where the mechanics do their magic and even from the pace car that starts the race with my father, which was an unbelievable rush.

But there’s one more place to watch the race that actually prompted this story.  The infield is where the people are. Somewhere between 50 and 100,000 fans pay a fraction of the cost of a track ticket (infield is $40 these days) to get glimpses of the race and have the ultimate tailgate party.  The infield opens the night before. There’s a sprint to find your viewing spot and then the drinking begins.

Turn 3 (there are 4 on the 2.5-mile track) is lovingly called “the Snake Pit”. You get a clear view of the race down the back straightaway, the fight around the turns and the beginning of the sprint to the finish line. While visiting one spring, a group of my public school cronies decided to make the trek to the Speedway and I joined them. One of the father’s had a plumbing business and we took his panel truck with a flat roof which made a great viewing platform.

We set up in Turn 3 and noticed a huge scaffold where they were selling sitting room for $5 or $10. It looked pretty crowded when we got there. They kept adding more and more spectators until it was a buzzing swarm of humanity.  The final estimate was 125 people on the 30-foot-high structure.

When the race started, the cars were coming out of the straightaway into the turn, when it looked as if everyone on that scaffold had leaned forward to watch at the same time. Very slowly, the whole structure collapsed. To us, it seemed like slow motion. And then the screaming began.

You can clearly see the four of us on the roof of the truck at the right side of the Time photo. I’m the one sitting in the folding chair. We spent the next couple of hours helping pull people out of the mess. Two were killed when the scaffold fell on top of them and over 80 were injured.  I had never witnessed such tragedy in my young life. A description of the injuries we witnessed would be just too gruesome. When I saw this photo in the book, it brought it all back in an instant. That disaster is far from my fondest memory of the Indianapolis 500 but it’s indelible.

Scaffolds were banned after that and the race goes on. It’s still a spectacle and, with speeds being what they are today, the race is over here on the west coast before brunch. Still I’ll turn on the television this weekend to hear all those assembled sing “Back Home Again In Indiana” and then check to see if David Letterman is in the crowd (he’s a car owner). I don't follow closely enough now to have favorites, although I wish Danica Patrick hadn't dropped the 500 from her schedule. It was great when she held the pole position and a win would have been fantastic.

Whether or not you watch "the 500", I hope you enjoy the Memorial Day weekend with family and friends. And take a moment to remember those who have fought and died to give us this privilege. It's important.

So much grief...

There has just been too much grief in our lives lately. So many horrific events have confronted us in the past few weeks and even those that are far away have weighed on our minds.

It began with the missing Malaysian Airline flight. How could we not feel the pain and confusion of the grief-stricken families of the 270 on board. Even today, they are still without real answers to what happened to their loved ones.

And then the surprise crash of a news helicopter in Seattle that cost the lives of two veteran news people who many of us knew personally. The remaining survivor is in all our thoughts each day of his recuperation.

 

Since, we’ve been inundated almost daily with school slashings, military shootings, ferry sinkings, fiery bus collisions and natural disasters.

The Oso, Washington, Mudslide and the Everest Icefall Avalanche hit very close to home…both literally and figuratively.

Everest has been a part of my life for three decades and the Sherpa people have become close friends. The Mountain needs a rest. My friend Ed Hillary thought so…and so do I. Too much activity; too many people; too much trash and too much money are making Everest a victim of its own appeal. Losing those Sherpa lives as they took great risk to put in a rope route to the summit so that hundreds more could clip in and stand in the queue to say they “climbed” Everest seems more like a Disneyland ride than one of world’s natural wonders. What a shame.

The Mudslide at Oso is one of the most devastating natural disasters in our state’s history.  A 30- to 70-foot wall of mud and debris collapsed onto a small town burying many of the residents and sweeping away the homes and personal lives of everyone who lived there. There was no notice. One moment it was a typical Saturday morning and, in little more than 30 seconds, the community was gone.

The public response to the Oso disaster has been unbelievably passionate and exemplary. From the moment it happened, those who have come upon the scene have not hesitated to help. The overabundance of search volunteers have forced those in charge of the recovery to literally place people in queues to avoid putting themselves in danger while trying to assist.  The homes and highway are under as much as 75-feet of mud and the heavy equipment has only cleared about two-feet of debris as the search continues for the last two known to be lost.

The Red Cross, the United Way, the county government and FEMA have all joined together to deal with the one-mile-square devastation. The outpouring of sentiment has been heart-warming.  Hardly a media interview has been done without emotions being frayed. Supplies, clothing and even money are pouring in from every direction. The major local hospital has established a disaster relief fund to provide immediate assistance to those in need.  They hoped to raise $5000.  The fund is nearing $2 million today. This event has touched the country in a way that few on this scale ever do. We are all feeling the pain of this small town. They’re our neighbors and they’ve lost everything.  Caring for our own is the only answer.

President Obama came today and viewed the Oso devastation with our governor and two senators. Photos don’t seem to capture the scene that a first-hand view from the air does. He met with families of those lost and with the first responders who have worked tirelessly for the past weeks to find those who were missing.  He praised the resilience of the community.  He remembered a letter he received from a first responder who pointed out the care and reverence that the heavy equipment operators had taken in doing their job, knowing that this was a search for loved ones. The President made the comment that he was most impressed by the fact that the letter was paying tribute to what others had done and not to himself.

I can’t resist a shout out for two young talented professionals who have been leading the communications and community liaison efforts at Oso for FEMA, my father’s employer for 20 years.  Ryan Ike and Erin Ward showed their abilities and leadership in the classes I taught this year at the University of Washington. I am very proud of them and the stellar work they have done in this crisis.

There are generally known to be 5 stages of grief…denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I know I’ve felt elements of these at times in my life. But I would sadly add a 6^th stage and call it “recrimination”. It’s the really ugly one, as far as I’m concerned. This is the “who’s to blame?” stage and it’s already begun. It’s really a legal term and this is where the lawyers enter the picture.  They’re are swarming in on almost all these disasters to find out whose fault it was and how can we make them pay?

They’re after Boeing for making the plane that’s somewhere on the bottom of the ocean. The company that made the helicopter that crashed is under scrutiny. The crew of the ferry is being arrested for sending people to a certain death. The Sherpas are after the Nepalese government for not properly sharing the profits from the expedition income it receives and the county and state are being targeted for issuing building permits on the site of the mudslide. I’m all for finding safer ways to do all these things but for those who’ve lost their lives, it’s too late. We need to be better at caring for each other. We need to use our technology to help avoid disasters and not just to turn on the lights and feed the dog when we can’t get home in time from the party.

More self-reliance is what I think I’m looking for. Grieving is a process we can’t avoid at times like these. But we can stand up for one another. Once again, the Oso incident underscores a major tenent of life in the Pacific Northwest. We take care of our own. This is something the peoples around the world should consider.  It’s not always someone else’s fault. Sometimes it's our own fault and other times, it just happens. I want to see the storm clouds move over and let some sunshine in.  We’ve had enough misery for a while.  Don’t you think? 

In the middle of nowhere...

A thousand miles from the Australian coast in the southern ocean is indeed the middle of nowhere. As the search continues for some sign of Malaysian Flight 370, the location is familiar to me because we mounted a search and rescue operation in that exact spot when promoting and producing a solo yacht race around the world.

Much of the race took place in the southern ocean which is known to be the most remote location on earth. The  boats were literally thousands of miles from land. Communication there is difficult even today. Satellite coverage is spotty. And the search and rescue efforts today face the same problems we did then.

Locations are out of helicopter range. Low-altitude flying conditions are dangerous much of the time and, with 30-foot seas in 60-knot winds, identifying an 80-foot, or in our case a 60-foot, piece of equipment is difficult at best.

It was early evening when our communications center received a signal from both emergency beacons that were required for each boat to carry. It was our leading competitor, who had already encountered some severe weather problems but was still making her way toward Sydney. We could not establish voice communication via satellite messaging or marine radio and that was very disconcerting.

It's times like this when partnerships are invaluable. Just like the current effort, the Royal Australian Navy and Air Force joined in to help. The beacons on board the yacht were transmitting its location, so the next morning, an Australian Royal Air Force Hercules aircraft left Adelaide at 4am to make a search.

It took 4 hours for the plane to reach the area where the signal was transmitting, 920 miles southwest of Australia's southern coast. Sound familiar? They began to fly a grid pattern over the area in hopes of spotting the boat. Another 4 hours had past when a member of Isabelle Autissier's shore crew aboard the plane saw the boat with Isabelle on the deck wildly waving at them.Tell me the boat doesn't look like a wave.

Her boat had been completely dis-masted with nothing visible on the deck. There was a gaping six-foot hole in the roof of the cabin. She had been hit by a rogue wave, rolling the boat in a complete 360-revolution. She was fortunately below deck when it happened. Otherwise she would have surely been swept overboard. An emergency kit including a small walkie-talkie type radio was dropped from the plane and they were able to communicate the rescue plan to her.

We were in constant contact with the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center for that part of the world, based in Canberra, and they informed us that the Navy frigate HMAS Darwin had been dispatched to the site from Western Australia but it would still take approximately two days to reach Isabelle.

Nothing seems easy in that part of the world's oceans but the Darwin arrived on schedule.  They dispatched a Seahawk (GO HAWKS!) helicopter from the Darwin to her location and, on the hand-held radio, instructed Isabelle in the necessary procedures. They took a civilian linguist (her being French and all), a television pool cameraman and a medical officer to cover any contingencies and record the operation. With a strong harness and a trained rescuer on the winch, they plucked her off the damaged boat to safety with little problem.

We were in Adelaide at the Air Force base to meet her when she arrived in two more days' time. Emotions were high when we reunited. And the world media was waiting. This incident took about a week and we knew very quickly exactly were the boat was. It was only a day after the distress signal that we found out Isabelle was safe. Think about the families of Malaysia Flight 370 who have had no word for two weeks and about the searchers who are only going on a sketchy satellite image with a location that could have moved hundreds of miles since it was identified.

Hope is dimming now on all fronts. I am an optimist who is wishing for a happy resolution to this current situation but there are very strong doubts in my mind. After all, it is the middle of nowhere. Fingers crossed.

Territory Folks Should Stick Together

In the wake of yesterday's horrible news helicopter crash here in Seattle, the Rogers and Hammerstein lyrics from Oklahoma come to mind. "The Farmer and the Cowman should be friends." Journalists and public relations professionals don't always see eye to eye. But during my career, I've gotten to know reporters who understand both sides of the situation and photo-journalist Bill Strothman, who sadly died in yesterday's accident, was one of them.

I can't say we were friends but we always recognized each other when we were working a story. Our careers spanned about the same amount of time and he and I stood around together on countless occasions waiting for the news to happen. Mostly we would chat about what was going on in town but, because I started out as a correspondent and teach media relations at the University of Washington, I was always anxious to get Bill's take on the world around us.

Bill had a wonderful sense of the news and was a model of the ethics that make good reporting work.  He knew where not to go with his camera and he knew when the time was right. An affable, comfortable person, he never pushed when we were together.  He'd listen and, even when he had no reporter with him, he knew to ask the questions that would fill in the blanks.

One of my mentors told me that the best public relations comes from being a good reporter. I try to always take the media's side when finding the news in a story. Bill Strothman was the kind of person who helped me see through the clutter on a daily basis.

I'm glad I knew him and my heart goes out to his family and his colleagues at KOMO News. The tragic loss of Bill and the pilot Gary Pfitzner is being felt by the entire community. For me, all of us in the communications business are trying to tell stories in a way that people can understand and relate to them. Whether it's reporting or promoting, we should have the same goal in mind. Effective communications is what we want. No matter which side of the fence we're on. Like the song says. "Territory folks should stick together." That's important now more than ever. For certain, I know we've lost a gracious advocate in Bill Strothman and we'll miss him.

It starts with the land...

My ancestors were farmers as far as I can trace them. Even back in the 1600’s, they were tilling the land in Ireland. As they worked their way across America, they kept at it. Farms and grains and livestock were in their blood.  My grandfather started out that way, but he broke the chain when he became a banker. My dad took over the farm until he was drafted in the Army and became a career officer. I consider myself fortunate to have known my grandparents. And my great-grandfather was still alive when I was a young child. His was the first funeral I ever attended.  I still have his rocking chair, which according to my grandmother was an 1870’s vintage. No matter where dad was stationed while I was growing up, he would send me off to the farm in the summers. I wouldn’t trade those times for anything. My grandparents were tough and hardy souls. I’m a better person for knowing them. The Irish are good at a lot of things but their roots are in the soil.  I feel their spirits when I’m in Ireland. The connection is strong. Lamb for dinner and a shot of Jameson are waiting for me tonight. May the most you wish for be the least you get.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day, wherever you're from.

The Web we weave...

This week marks the 25^th birthday of the World Wide Web (the Web). Let’s draw the line right now. The web is NOT the internet. It’s ON the internet and allows us to view all those zillions of websites that we access every day. Not long after the web came into existence, we were promoting and producing a solo yacht race around the world from Charleston, South Carolina. The BOC Challenge, or Around Alone as it came to be known, was a 27,000 mile race around the world, one person, one boat, alone. We had competitors for all over the world, a feeder race from England to get the European competitors over to America and a host committee in Charleston that would make any global event producer proud.

 

As you might imagine with one person on a sailboat thousands of miles from land, communications for the race was crucial.  When the event started in the 1980’s, ham radio operators were its only lifeline and the reliability of those air waves was dubious at times. When we got to Charleston in the 90’s, we had satellite tracking in its very early stages but it was a ground-breaking and life-saving addition to the race at the time. Cellphones were getting smaller but coverage was spotty and a battery might last for a couple of hours without a recharge. The system was getting better but still limited.

One of the promises we made to sponsors of the event was daily position reports and news releases. And then, it was not as easy as it might sound today. Laptops had dial-up connections that took hours and email was still a thing of the future.  We were faxing position reports and releases to over one hundred worldwide media each morning and it literally took hours to get the word out.

As we were grappling with the system to make it as efficient as possible, I received a call from a professor at the College of Charleston.  He knew about the race and said he had an idea for our communications effort that he wanted to share with us. We set a time to meet and arrived to a cavernous lab room full of computers, wires and boxes of electronics. One of our sponsors was IBM and the fifteen-pound “Thinkpads” they gave us were pretty futuristic but still they would crash when we put about as much information on them as is on the 500 MB inch-long flash drive that’s in my bottom desk drawer today because it’s so small.

The professor told us that he heard from a local newspaper reporter that we were going to issue daily position reports.  He said he had a better way to distribute them than via fax. “We call it the "spider web" and it’s linking computers and colleges all over the world almost instantaneously,” he remarked, “And some businesses and media are beginning to join in on this experiment as well.” He went on to demonstrate it to us by posting one of our news releases and sending it to Italy, the home of one of our competitors. Within a few minutes, we got a phone call back telling us they had received the message at the other end and could easily distribute it from there.

Little did we know that this was the beta test and we were the guinea pigs for the World Wide Web and we were astounded to have this new-found capability. It literally became a life-saving tool when we printed screen-drop positions for boats in trouble that we could send immediately to authorities anywhere in the world. It was an amazing aid to rescue efforts on more than one occasion. And we knew it was working because, if we missed a scheduled reporting time, dozens of calls came in from around the world asking what the problem was.

Thanks to the College of Charleston, we were the first global event to use the web to communicate on a daily basis.  Our media coverage increased 20-fold from the past and our race was safer and better managed as a result of this capability. Over 5,000 feature articles were written about Around Alone and we logged 500 hours of world network television time devoted to it.  Even Time, Sports Illustrated and People magazines sung our praises.

By the next event four years later, we had live satellite tracking on much improved laptops. Like radar, you could actually watch the boats move in the middle of the Indian Ocean on your laptop screen in real time. Cell communication was hitting its stride and we were getting over 150,000 unique visitors to our website on a daily basis. We partnered with a company called Quokka Sports, owned by some America’s Cup sailors who were prepping for live coverage of the America’s Cup.  We got their beta test with a great crew of reporters and photographers who followed us around the world posting information several times a day. Never before could a global sports event be followed so closely by so many. As communicators, we were very fortunate to be involved in the infancy of this world-changing creation known as the Web.

Happy Birthday, World Wide Web. We love you.