I became an ART or Air Reserve Technician in January of 1987.  When I got off active duty in 1984, the only thing I was sure of was I wanted to move back to Pittsburgh to raise my kids and it didn’t take long for me to realize the Air Force Reserves and I had a lot in common. I enjoyed the sense of family and community the reserves offered and I knew I could settle in for the long haul.   So when an ART job became available I jumped on the chance not as a holding pattern for an airline job, but as an intentional career choice.

Luckily, my first ART job was the one I really wanted, pilot scheduler.  Now most new ARTs usually end up as a scheduler, whether they want it or not.  Folks get burned out with the continual changes and the pressure of filling the lines and everyone moves up in the pecking order when someone quits the program inevitably leaving the scheduling job as the empty seat.  Regardless of how it happened, I was happy.

I actually enjoyed the pace and pressure of the job.  I’ve always liked the challenge of solving a problem and crisis management and I especially like creative and elegant solutions.  But what I really liked most about scheduling was getting to know and understand people and what made them tick.

I find it interesting how many different ways people can be motivated.  Some people are very straight forward and transparent.  The ones who are all about the money, or looking to increase their flying time to become more competitive for an airline job.  But most are motivated by a more subtle mix of family, economics, duty, lifestyle and pure joy of the job, and finding where they are in that mix is what makes the job interesting and challenging.  I’m not saying you should manipulate people, but knowing the nature of their character helps to find where they can best plug into the needs of the organization.  And it really does boil down to character.

People don’t really change their character.  That is, unless they make a very conscious choice to do so.  In fact, the older you get the more you’re invested in who you are.  Each one of us live our lives making deposits in our character bank.  Small, seemingly insignificant decisions and choices made every day send a message to those around us telling them who we are, what we believe, how much we’ll bend, whether we really are who we say we are.  Simply put, the true nature of our character.  You make those little deposits and hopefully, you never have to make a big withdrawal.  Sadly, too many people have an empty, or near empty, account and when a tough decision needs to be made the result is predictable

Captain “Sully” Sullenberger did an interview after his successful ditching in New York and said that he had been making deposits into his training bank for 42 years.  He had been through countless simulator sessions, qualification training programs, and cockpit resource management courses and when he hit those birds and lost both engines he just had to make a large withdrawal from his account.

Each of us needs to be prepared to make a large withdrawal from our character bank.  In the face of tough times and challenges we need to be ready to stand up to what we know is wrong and stand up for what we know is right and have the consistency of character to make the stand a credible one.

I still enjoy being in the heat of battle.  The day to day challenges of a dynamic flying program.  But most of all I enjoy watching a team of highly motivated, consummate professionals make it look effortless.  It’s what I will miss most.