Loren Lippincott
Years ago when I was a pilot for Delta Airlines I was on an NYC to LA flight. I was running the radios and while at cruise altitude flying through Air Traffic Control (ATC) Cleveland Center I checked in with the controller and had several routine exchanges with him. He was difficult to understand and his attitude was flippant and unprofessional, which was uncommon for ATC controllers!
While we were in flight I told Cleveland Center I would call them once we landed and when I got to my hotel room in LAI called their administrative office. By the time I called, the supervisors had pulled the recordings of our transmissions so they could hear the conversation for themselves. I also spoke with anATC supervisor responsible for followup on complaints. As we talked on our personal cell phones, he told me he had pulled other recordings of this particular controller and found his performance to be well below standards. As a result, they pulled him off line and enrolled him in additional training. The supervisor told me this individual had been a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) hire and that this was becoming all too common in the ATC environment. During my 30 years at Delta I saw a marked decrease in the quality ofATC controllers beginning in 2009.
In June 2023 Keith Washington was appointed to head the FAA by Pres. Joe Biden, even though he had zero past experience in aviation. None! However, he did have a high amount of melanin in his skin. By contrast, his predecessor, Steve Dickson (a Trump appointee) graduated No. 1 in his class of 1,000 at the U.S. Air Force Academy and had been an F-15 pilot. After his Air Force service he was hired by Delta where he soon became the chief pilot among 14,000 of his peers. During his time at Delta, Dickson also attended law school in Atlanta and graduated No. 1 in his class.
I know Dickson well. He is an outstanding servant leader, quiet, controlled, capable and focused.
He is exceedingly qualified in whatever task is before him. He models performance par excellence that breeds a culture of the same.
Many years ago one of my passengers on a Delta flight was former NASA astronaut Rear Admiral Alan Shepard, who was America’s first man in space. As a crew member of Apollo 14 (the first mission after the famous, ill-fated Apollo 13 flight) he became only the fifth human to step foot on the moon. During our flight I had an opportunity to visit with Shepard and he brought up the Apollo 13 movie that was then showing in movie theaters. He said it was exceptionally well done and its accuracy was spot on so he encouraged me to see it. Commenting on the heroic efforts by the Mission Control engineers to save the lives of those three astronauts, Shepard reminded me that the average age of those engineers was just 28. It was a powerful reminder that excellence matters!
America has recently seen several tragic aviation mishaps. I hesitate to cast judgment before the facts are known, but from personal experience I can affirm that when hiring practices are not performance-based, performance suffers! Additionally, I would echo Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of a colorblind world where “my children will be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.”
In the workplace we all want co-workers who are competent, dedicated and honest. Melanin concentration in a person’s skin a tenth of a millimeter thick should have nothing to do with hiring, firing or promoting. Performance, quality of work, dedication and loyalty are the desired benchmarks.
This belief is why I have introduced LB 552 which prohibits post secondary schools in Nebraska from having DEI offices or classes. DEI really stands for division, exclusion and ineptitude. As American economist Thomas Sowell observed, “Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity, where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for things they themselves are doing today.”
Loren Lippincott represents Legislative District 34 in the Nebraska State Senate. Read his column in the Nance County Journal.