Corporate execs could learn from this guy
By this time, most of America knows about this guy.
He's the pilot who managed to save 155 people when the US Airways jet he was piloting was forced to splash down in the Hudson River. The crash occurred after a flock of birds flew into the engines, causing them both to fail. This is the kind of guy corporate America needs - someone who simply steps in and does what's needed.
In these troubled times, we desparately need these kind of people.
Unfortunately, it seems that most of the corporate higher-ups we hear about are the ones who have either funneled money aside for their own personal use, or have just been plain incompetent.
But I truly think there is something heroic about doing the right thing. If the person at the head of a company has a conscience - and strong ethics - those qualities can work wonders in the way a business operates and in the way customers perceive that company.
Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger (he's the pilot in case you didn't know) took control and turned a really bad situation into one we can now be proud of. And that kind of pride is always a good - and well deserved - thing.
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About this blog
Economic Alert is a daily blog on business and the economy in the San Gabriel Valley and beyond, featuring updates and observations from the staff of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. SGVN includes the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily News.
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Kevin Smith is business editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Over the past 15 years, Smith has covered development, housing, employment, technology and financial trends for a variety of newspapers.
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Ryan Carter covers business and the economy for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.
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Your hosts:
Kevin Smith is business editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Over the past 15 years, Smith has covered development, housing, employment, technology and financial trends for a variety of newspapers.
Ryan Carter covers business and the economy for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.
pc9We need a hell of a lot more than resilient men with a steady hand on the wheel to run our businesses. We need businesses, period.
The hundreds of machine shops once thrived here in the SGV, feeding off the then robust aerospace industry. As did flourishing small manufacturers and their suppliers; and dozens of retailers, banks, S&Ls, truckers, and more, all profitinging, with fully employed, well paid workers, pensioned and insured, in a regulated ecocomy. And, we all payed taxes.
Given that we can't do anything about the past practices that have driven us over the cliff and have not softened the fall, we can make certain that wreckless driving and flocks of geese are avoided with no-nonsense rules and regulations to control the lousy pilots and their excesses.
Like the country, the SGV has lost industries, skilled jobs and the income they generated. They will never be replaced. The corporate and local business maps have been redrawn. Import-export, warehousing, and distribution take up our industrial real estate. Most are owned by recent immigrants from Asia or companies heavily invested in trade with Asia. The landscape would be bleak without them.
We swept away the groves, vineyards, fields and dairies. The things we made here, appliances, trucks, cars, steel, ties, aluminum, ships, clothing, lumber, even food and pharaceuticals, are made in far places for low wages and to low standards. Is it any wonder we pay more ways than one for those changes.
As we grew in numbers and complexities, our governments at all levels grew with us. As did their salaries and benefits. Government income did not. Taxes were cut, services were gutted. While allowing business and industry to re-locate enterprises overseas along with the jobs to run them, government cut remaining applicable taxes, pension protections, and other regulations. You and I, all of us, are living with the results.
A veteran, skilled pilot or two could, as you point out, certainly help, if they had a plane to fly and the fuel to fly it. We need them all.
Yes, Kevin, he made the right decision and is truly a hero. We also know what's needed desperately at the corporate level, but the reality is, too few fit the profile and too many have done too little, proving they are incompetent or self-serving for their own personal gain.
Not only is it prevelent and prolific at the corporate level, but through the ranks of businesses, all the way to the top of The Hill.
"But I truly think there is something heroic about doing the right thing. If the person at the head of a company has a conscience - and strong ethics - those qualities can work wonders in the way a business operates and in the way customers perceive that company."
If only...dream on, my friend.
As soon as we wakled into the store I could smell it! What, you’re not a fan? Try the durian milkshake at Golden Deli! hahahah
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