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Speech

ATO "Leading Edge" Conference

Good morning, and thank you, Isa [Campbell]. It is certainly my privilege to have an opportunity to speak with you today. Acting Administrator Bobby Sturgell sends his regrets. He is testifying at a Senate field hearing in Philadelphia this morning. I am positive he would rather be here with you.

I believe there are few leadership positions in the public sector today that are more challenging and more fulfilling than in the FAA. Our responsibilities are critically important to our nation’s transportation, commerce, communications, and defense. We are entrusted with what everyone involved in the aviation system holds most dear — the safety of their traveling families, their friends, and themselves. And, let me congratulate all of you today on our outstanding safety record and for your day-in-and-day-out dedication to making a safe system even safer. The FAA’s influence is not just limited to this country; it is global, and that is largely thanks to the hard work of the FAA’s people.

You have spent this week hearing from professionals in the leadership development field and from leaders in ATO. You may be wondering what I could possibly add to this impressive group of presenters. I wondered that myself. My answer — I can share a few of my personal lessons learned, and observations from 37 years as a public servant.

First, some context. When I came to the FAA in 1975 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development …

• The Secretary of Transportation established a Task Force on the FAA Safety Mission to examine FAA’s performance on safety issues.
• The Microwave Landing System (MLS) Executive Committee had chosen the time reference scanning beam (TRSB) technique over Doppler scanning as the U.S. candidate for the international standard microwave landing system.
• FAA and PATCO reached agreement on a two-year contract with 74 articles, one of which included a guarantee of controller participation in the newly established Aviation Safety Report Program. The purpose of the program was to provide the agency with information on potentially unsafe conditions and to encourage reports of violations through immunity from disciplinary actions for pilots or controllers who filed timely reports.

Today, 33 years later …

• Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters announced last Friday the creation of an outside team of aviation and safety experts to evaluate and craft recommendations to improve our implementation of the aviation safety system.
• Our ADS-B Aviation Rulemaking Committee is working through 1,372 comments to our Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
• And, FAA and NATCA just signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing the Air Traffic Safety Action Program to foster a voluntary, cooperative, non-punitive environment for open reporting of safety information.

I love history. One of my all time favorite historians is David McCullough, author of many books on the American Revolutionary period. He authored the book John Adams that HBO recently turned into what I think was an outstanding mini-series. David McCullough says, “[Y]ou can’t understand yourself or your country without a sense of the past.” He has also been quoted as saying, “If the people of Philadelphia, the founders, had been the kind of politicians who are poll-driven, they would have scrapped the whole thing” — he is referring to the horrendous odds of establishing a republic and a new constitution — “because only about a third of the country was for it; at least a third, or more, were adamantly against it; while the remaining third, in the good old human way, were waiting to see who came out on top.”

Why am I bringing up history lessons? Because, you want to know what the future looks like. Well, from a leadership perspective, it looks a lot like the past.

Sure, technologies and systems evolve. Of course, the exponential growth in science, technology, engineering and math creates ever-increasing opportunities to expand our skills and do our work faster, cheaper, better.

But, let me help you with the “uncertainty” questions you say you have. From my experience, the fundamental issues you have faced in the past, you are facing now, and you will face in the future, are staying fairly constant. In my view the constant themes and issues are how to manage risks, how to manage and develop people, how to be good stewards of the public trust, and how to be effective communicators.

I’ve never seen a significant issue in the FAA that did not initially come entangled with pros, cons, ideologies, perceived winners and losers, sometimes excessive emotions, and arteries that stretch across several of our organizations and stakeholders. But, it is exactly the diversity present in this mix and the juxtapositions of the many factions that can result in a workable compromise for all. Reaching balanced solutions not only results from the diversities of input, but also many are brokered because of mutual trust between leaders who have developed good working relationships. Your influence will depend on your constant attention to building relationships and trust.

So, while I am I being so presumptuous as to offer you advice, let me stress a few more characteristics that I think we all ought to look for in our leaders. Expect the best from yourself, your managers, and your employees. Treat everyone with respect. Draw from our rich history and tradition of providing outstanding service and safety and commit to mentoring our developing workforce. Be passionate and positive. Model character, courage, and integrity when a third of the people support you, when a third are against you and when a third are waiting to see who comes out on top.

Thank you for listening and congratulations again for taking on the bright promise of our future.