KLM IN HARTFORD

Getting back to work after such a great family vacation in Europe was a very busy time. As I mentioned in the last chapter, I was now the District Sales Manager (DSM) for our Hartford office. I had to make many trips to the home office in New York, for budgeting, planning and meeting the top brass, along with and getting to know my Regional Manager, John Wold and the USA Sales Manager George Lambert, along with meeting the Vice President and General Manager for the USA Mr. D. J. Koeleman. Dealing with my own District was pretty easy as it was much the same area I had covered for Eastern Airlines. The major difference of course was that the revenue sources such as Travel Agents and Commercial Accounts were directed to Europe rather than the USA. I spent a great deal of time getting to know those Agents who had a lot of foreign travel, especially those who had a great deal of ethnic business such as Polish, Dutch, German, and other nationalities.

During my introduction to Mr. Koeleman the Vice President and Chief Executive, we were speaking about my time with Eastern Air Lines in Western Massachusetts. He asked if I was still living in Springfield, which I was. He informed me that as a DSM in Connecticut, I would have to move back to the Hartford area. In his rather thick Dutch accent, he said, our local managers have to live in the same State as their area of management. I was not a very happy camper to have to return home and tell my wife we had to move back to Connecticut. She was not exactly a happy camper either, but we packed up and moved on. This time I found a big English style home in West Hartford. It had a nice stream called Trout Creek that ran through the back yard. My son Kirby loved this as he could go fishing in the creek. Again, it was an old house with three floors, but it had a great location and looked very good. Of course, we painted, papered, repaired and restored. This was now our sixth home.

When we were in Holland on our family vacation I purchased authentic Dutch costumes for both Kathy and Karen. When the Hartford Times newspaper held their annual Travel Show, I got the girls to dress up in their costumes (wooden shoes and all) and distribute brochures in downtown Hartford. They were quite a hit and even ended up with their picture in the paper and a TV interview on a local station.

At this particular show, KLM was featuring my good friend Arthur Frommer, author of "Europe on five dollars a day". I had a great picture of the girls sitting on Arthurs lap and looking over his new book. Arthur Frommer is a great guy. He got the idea for the "Five Dollars A Day Books". While serving in Europe during WW ll. When he returned home he was sure that a guide book showing how inexpensive it was to travel in Europe resulted in a whole series of books on each country such as "Holland on Five Dollars A Day" France on Five Dollars A Day and so on. On one of my trips to Europe I took along his book and found that it was very accurate and I was able to find some very nice accommodations for that price. Of course that was in the good old days of the early fifties and sixties. I suppose today the book would be "Europe on $300 a day ".

I had a very interesting experience when I found that the 6^th World Sport Parachuting Championship Competition was going to be held on August 11^th to September 3^rd in Orange Massachusetts. I contacted the organization and found that participants would be coming from Russia, Poland, Holland, Germany etc. as well as the USA and Canada. I was able to speak with the organizer and talk to him about letting KLM set up a Charter flight out of Europe to bring in the participants. He agreed that it might work out and asked me to prepare a proposal. To make a long story short, we ended up with a Round trip charter flight out of Vienna to Boston. I had picked Vienna since the participants could fly from their home country into Vienna; board the DC-8 jet Charter which would already have the Dutch participants on board. This worked out fine and the organization bought the program. It was very interesting as I flew to Amsterdam and was on hand with the Dutch group in Vienna to welcome the other groups. The interesting part was that the Russians had to be the last to board the charter and insisted that they stand by the cargo door and watch their parachutes loaded and the door locked so no one could touch their chutes. I didn't fly with them to Boston but flew back to Amsterdam and then on to New York, pick up my car and drive home. A few days later I drove up to Orange and watched some of the competition. I was very interested in the Russian group and thought it would be nice to invite them to visit my home and see a little bit of Connecticut. At first they said it was forbidden for them to travel in the USA. I somehow got their leader (probably a KGB man) to agree to a one day trip and that he must go along as interpreter.

I had a good friend at the Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford. Their building had a tower that gave a good view of Hartford. He agreed to host the group for lunch and a visit to their tower. I rented an 8 seater van and picked up the group in Orange for the day trip. Travelers Insurance was a very good host and served a nice luncheon in their commissary. After lunch I drove them around Hartford and ended up at our home. The group came inside and toured the house. They had lots of questions and thought the garbage disposal was something they had never seen. Helen offered coffee and soft drinks and we were soon on our way back to Orange. I felt that I had done my best at international relations.