Excellence On The Job

Like the rest of the country, I watched what dominated the front pages and news networks yesterday: the emergency landing of the jet plane on the Hudson River. This was literally the coldest day that we experienced in years. If it weren't for the amazing man in the cockpit, Chelsey Sullenberger, the 150 passengers on board US Airways Flight 1549 would have surely been exposed to hypothermia, or badly hurt, or killed. Pretty much everyone made it home last night. People described Captain Sullenberger as "the pilot's pilot." Here's what the Inquirer reported about him in today's paper:

"He earned his pilot's license at 14, was named best aviator in his class at the Air Force Academy, flew fighter jets, investigated air disasters, mastered glider flying, and even studied the psychology of how cockpit crews behave in a crisis.

This is someone who has not just spent his life flying airplanes, but has actually dug very deeply into what makes these things work, and I think he proved it," said Robert Bea, a civil engineer who has known Sullenberger for a year."

How many people spend their lives obsessing about how to improve themselves on the job? What a glorious gift to be in a profession that inspires a person to learn more every day, to "dig deeply into what makes these things work."


I think Martin Luther King understood the stuff that makes professionals like Sullenberger tick, and he evidences it with the quote that I put next to his image. I want all of the students in my senior seminar class, and all the rest of my students for that matter, to one day find themselves in a profession for which they feel PASSION. I guess at the end of the race, when we're six feet under, we all want them to say, "Here is a great (fill in the blank) who did his job well."