KONINKLIJKE LUCHTVAART MAATSCHAPPIJ

The literal translation for the above Dutch words is "Royal Aviation Company" or, as it is better known, "KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines". This is the Company that I had decided to join. As you will recall from the previous blog, Dolf Bulterman, my friend from KLM, had suggested that I apply for a position with his Company as it was opening a sales office in Hartford. I did apply, and had to take a barrage of tests to ensure my ability to fill the Sale Manager Job, which I was applying for. I took the tests in New York, and returned home to Hartford, to wait for a call from KLM regarding the test results. It was an anxious time…

I had been back at work in my Eastern job for almost a week, when I received a call from KLM telling me that the results of my test were favorable and that they had an opening for me in Hartford. It seems that the Sales Manager's position had been filled, however they expected other management openings. In the meantime, would I accept a temporary Sales Representative position, right there, in Hartford? The salary KLM had offered me would remain the same. They asked me to let them know my answer by the following Monday. Helen's position was that I stay with Eastern Air Lines. I decided that in spite of her objections, I would have much better opportunities with a larger international airline.

The next day I called KLM and told them that I would accept the position. I told them that I wanted to give Eastern a two week notice of resignation, to which they agreed. On the following day I presented my resignation to Eastern. Holt Shipman, my Eastern boss, was not very happy, and it did not take long before the Regional Manager was on the phone asking me to reconsider. In many ways it became a difficult task to explain why I was doing this: I had a very happy relationship with my superiors and 13 years of seniority. I felt that after that length of time, with a growing company, I should have progressed further up the ladder. In any event, as much as I liked my bosses, and the Company, I was moving on. I must confess that, at that moment, even I was not one hundred percent sure I had made the right move. It's a little frightening when you're married with three young children, especially when your wife thinks you're crazy.

Two weeks later, at the new KLM office in the Statler Hilton Hotel, I met John Wold, my KLM Regional Manager, and my new District Manager, Jan Van Eckeren. There was a staff of four people working in the ticket office. John Wold had driven up from New York to welcome me. I filled out the required paper work and he was going to take back to New York to put it in my file. Wold, Van Eckeren, and I had lunch, and they spent a couple of hours telling me some of the background of KLM's operations in the USA. Van Eckren was a new District Manager. He had been a Sales Rep. in the New York Regional. Since he was new to the Connecticut area and I had been working the Hartford area for several years, he asked that I help him get acquainted. By the end of the day I felt very much at home. John Wold seemed like a very nice person. Since it was late afternoon he invited me to join him at the hotel bar where we could have some private conversation.

John had brought with him the report on my tests, which he wanted me to read. He could not give it to me to keep as it would go into my file in the Personnel Dept. in New York. It was about three or four pages long and covered a wide range of opinions as to my abilities and future possibilities. From what I remember, it was very positive and implied that I would
make an excellent Manager. John told me that they don't normally let their employees read their test results. He asked that I keep it confidential. I was very happy that he had done so as I was much surer I had made the right decision in coming to work for this KLM.

LIFE IS FULL OF CHALLENGES!

Perhaps the title of this blog should be "ANOTHER CHANGE", but then, isn't any change a challenge? One never knows if change is going to be good or bad. Every time anyone comes to a crossroad in life, one can only try to make a calculated guess as to where it will lead. Perhaps you decide that you're not going to make a change and instead just continue straight on. All your life you're going to wonder what if? Nothing in life comes with a guarantee. You can try to avoid change; however, change is not always up to you.

1960 became a year of decision. If you've been reading my blogs, you'll recall that I spoke about Dolf Bulterman, the District Sales Manager from KLM. I learned that Dolf had a couple of brothers. They were born in Holland and their mother was a secretary to Albert Plessman, the founder of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. Dolf's brother Charles was an executive with KLM in New York.

One day, around November of 1960, I ran into Dolf, in Springfield. He had come down from Boston and wanted to speak with me. There was a Friendly's coffee shop nearby, where we had a cup of coffee. Dolf told me that KLM was expanding and was planning on opening a District Sales Office in Hartford. He asked me if I would be interesting in applying for the job of District Manager. He had spoken about me to the KLM U.S. Sales Manager in New York and had recommended me. Now KLM wanted to interview me in New York. I told him I had no experience in the European Market. Dolf said that I had lots of airline experience and I could learn the foreign market. I said that I would like to think it over and would contact him the next day.

Going home that night I spoke to Helen about the conversation with Dolf Bulterman and that I thought I should try for the interview. Helen was very much opposed to the idea. She mentioned the 13 years I had invested with Eastern and didn't want me to throw it all away. I told her that Eastern had an opening for a District Manager in New Jersey that I had applied for. I told her I had gotten the interview, but was told by Eastern that they thought I was too young for the job. That was in 1957 and I was 31 years old. I knew the man who got that job; he was about 50, but I believe I was better qualified than he was. I sure didn't want to wait another 20 years to get another opportunity. Helen was still opposed. Her father was a tool maker who had been in the same job for thirty years. He came from the old school where you work 9 to 5 and, if you lived long enough, got a gold watch. I told her I had to see where this new opportunity might lead. I promised her that I would not make a firm commitment without talking to her. The following day I called Dolf and asked him to make an appointment for me.

A few days later I found myself in the KLM building, in New York. The interview went very well. However, I was told that the Company never employed anyone without extensive testing and that as of that moment they would like to offer me the position, subject to the testing results. The salary they offered me was substantially more than I was making at Eastern. The testing was going to be over a two day period, with an outside private company that specialized in determining the suitability of prospective employees. KLM paid the cost involved and would provide overnight accommodations in New York. I thanked them, and said that I would call them to let them know the date when I could return for the test.

Frankly, I was concerned over the testing. It had been years since I had taken any tests and the thought of two days of it was already giving me a headache. When I got back to Springfield, I told Helen about the interview, the salary offered, and the need to pass their tests. Helen once again protested the whole idea. She thought that if I failed the tests, it would somehow get back to Eastern etc. I had to make a decision. Go against my wife's objections, take tests that I might fail, or should I just remain a Sales Rep for Eastern and maybe, someday, get a promotion. I had been very impressed with how I had been received by KLM, their modern offices, and the KLM building on Fifth Ave. Something told me not to pass up this opportunity.

WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS

Western Massachusetts was a beautiful area of the state. The city of Springfield was not as big as Hartford, but it had a number of well known companies and many travel agents. Eastern decided to open a Springfield ticket office in the Sheridan Hotel. This way I now had my own office as well as two tickets agents, who could give me some backup office help.

Just before my official takeover of the Western Massachusetts area, Helen gave birth to a son on September 23^rd 1955. It was nice to have a son. It's not that girls aren't very special, because they are. I love my daughters very much and would never change them for anything. I guess it's just that every father would like to have a son. So, here was our son. What to name this new arrival? Helen decided upon Raymond Kirby Kitchener, to be called Kirby. So now we had three little "Ks" Kathy, Karen and Kirby. Kirby was just as fair haired and blue eyed as his sisters. The girls loved him and he became the center of attention in the household.

I enjoyed working out of Springfield. There were some very good travel agents in the city, and sales were progressing nicely. I was able to get ATP card sales to many top companies, including Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Co., Stanley Home Products and the Breck Corporation. It was a rather long commute every day from Windsor Locks to Springfield, so it was decided in 1958 that we sell the Connecticut house and buy one in Springfield. Helen was in charge of finding a home for us. She fell in love with a very old three story house on Magnolia Terrace, in Springfield. The house was located about a block from a beautiful public park and only a few blocks from the elementary school. I remember that about that time, Hip Lloyd gave Kathy a black cat that she named "Tinkle". She became the family pet and Kathy used to drag it with her wherever she went.

It was late November 1958. In December, Eastern Airlines pilots went on strike. Captain Eddy Rickenbacker said that all management personnel would be kept on the payroll for an unspecified time, subject to the strike being settled. No one thought that the strike would last long. I thought that it would be nice to have a Christmas party for the twenty or so Hartford and Springfield office employees who were not working. Most of them came, and it was a nice party. In January, I joined their ranks. As the strike dragged on, I decided to get a job in the men's department of the local department store.

When we purchased the Springfield house, I had the heating oil tank for the furnace filled. It took 500 gallons to fill it. In early January, I had to fill it again. The very old steam furnace in the cellar, consumed oil almost as fast as I could fill the tank. I learned a lesson: big old houses may look great from the outside, but you better have deep pockets to keep them going. The one positive thing about the house was that the three little Ks liked it. In the spring, Kathy learned to ride a bike, Karen learned how to make mud pies (which she called mushy gushy), and Kirby, who was only three liked to play catch with the girls.

The strike had been settled in late January and I was back at work, but I decided to continue to work part time at the department store in order to keep the furnace fed. By midsummer, we had been able to sell the beautiful old house on Magnolia Terrace, and purchased a Cape Cod style house on Short Street, in Westfield. Air travel continued to grow and I was finding more airline sales representatives calling on "my" travel agents and commercial accounts. Many of these sales people were representing foreign airlines. One particular sales manager I kept running into was Dolf Bulterman. Dolf was District Manager for K.L.M. Royal Dutch Airlines, in Boston. He was a nice guy: we would frequently have lunch together when we met up on the road. Since we were not competitors, we would often share information on what was going on with various travel agents.

I remember the winter of '59 very well: we had so much snow that on many occasions I couldn't get to work, as the snow was so deep on Short Street that not even the snow plows get through for a couple of days. To this day, I am reminded by my children how I fell off the roof into a snow bank, while trying to get the snow off the roof. During the following that summer I built a large rabbit hutch in the back yard. I bought several large rabbits for the children and gave them the task to feed them and keep them clean, a responsibility that they handled well.

One of my monthly sales trips was to go north from Springfield, Massachusetts on route 91, to Northampton, where I would visit agents and make a call on Smith College. From there I would continue north to Greenfield, where I had an agent; then I would pick up the Mohawk Trail west to North Adams, where I had two agents and a couple of commercial accounts. Next I would head south to Pittsfield, in the Berkshire Mountains. In winter or summer, this was a beautiful scenic trip. At one time my father came for a visit with us and I took him on this day trip. He enjoyed it so very much; I will always remember that day in 1959.

THE NEW DISTRICT GROWS

Eastern Airlines was growing as more individuals and corporations found the speed and convenience of air travel for vacations and business. The commercial side of business travel grew the fastest, as salesmen, executives and meeting planners could set up or attend meetings in a much shorter time. Salesmen could now expand their travel to include more cities and still get home for the weekend. The Hartford office expanded to cover the Northern area of Connecticut and all of Western Massachusetts. This area included about one hundred travel agents and hundreds of commercial accounts.

It was a daunting task to cover all this territory. I spent many weeks making an inventory of all the travel agents in the district. Many hours were spent on the phone, calling agents for details on ownership, employees, etc. These were all placed on IBM cards. It was important to make a call pattern so that the travel agents got a personal visit. Fortunately, the A.R.C. (Airline Reporting Corporation), could supply us with ticket sales figures, per agency. This information was also noted on the IBM cards so I knew the highest producers for our area.

On the commercial side, I had to determine what large corporations and manufacturers were in my sales area. This was very important as airlines were trying to gain control of business travel by offering credit through their use of a credit card issued by a specific airline. The card was called an ATP Account or "Air Travel Plan" account. Although the card was good for charging travel on any airline, it gave the issuing airline the ability to know on which airline the passenger was purchasing tickets, and where they were traveling. This was very important information as now the District Sales Representative whose airline had the ATP account knew how much travel was being done and what airline was being used.

In order to obtain an ATP account a company or other organization had to place a deposit with the issuing airline, in the amount of $425.00. For a company that was doing a lot of travel, they could have an individual card issued for all their executive staff and traveling sales people, giving them control over their travel expenses, such as first class or coach travel. Fortunately I was very good at sales and often had the highest ATP sales of all the District offices.

Developing a good rapport with the large travel agencies was very important as a travel agent was often able to direct their client's air travel to any airline serving their client's destination. Some of the large agents would direct their staff to steer their clients to a certain airline. It was about that time that group travel started. A good sales representative began calling on large corporations and talking to employee groups and organizations about organizing a group of fellow employees or organization members to travel to Florida, or other popular destinations for their vacations. We could offer a free ticket to the organizer if they reached a group of fifteen people or more. (Giving a free ticket to anybody or even to a group of fifteen people had to be approved by the C.A.B.)

The Civil Aviation Board controlled all aviation. Airline routes were awarded by the C.A.B., the routes were based on public need, and were subsidized by the government for carrying the mail. All routes were airmail routes and flight numbers were based on those routes. The first digit in the flight number indicated if the aircraft was traveling from North to South, or from South to North, from East to West, or from West to East. The second digit indicated the direction in which the aircraft was traveling. For instance, Eastern Airlines flight 602 was airmail route #6 and 02 indicated it was a northbound flight. Flight 603 would be the same airmail route only southbound.

The C.A.B. controlled all air fares. Airlines could not charge just any fare they wanted, nor could they pay any commission they wanted. It all had to be approved by the CAB. Unfortunately, many airlines bent the rules or ignored them completely. The C.A.B. would assess heavy fines if they were caught, but later on it got completely out of control which led to the Dublin Accords, which I will mention later. During President Carter's administration airlines were deregulated, however all regulation pertaining to safety, maintenance, pilot training, etc. still remains in force today through the F.A.A. (The Federal Aviation Administration).

Getting back to the Hartford office, because of the size of the sales area, it was almost impossible to give it the coverage it deserved. In consultation with the Regional Office, we decided that we needed an additional salesman. We interviewed a number of applicants and decided on Chris Mayhall, who came to us from our Alabama office. He was a great guy, whom all of us got to admire greatly. We decided that I would cover the Western Massachusetts area, and Chris would cover Northern Connecticut.