AN ERA COMES TO A CLOSE

When I arrived in Los Angeles in 1988 my first visit to an airline was to Flying Tigers on World Way. I checked my Thomas Guide and promptly went to World Way which happened to be where the airline passenger terminals were. I drove around and around for thirty minutes trying to see a Flying Tiger sign, all the while wondering why are their offices at a passenger terminal. Exasperated I returned to the office, called them to apologize for being late, but I couldn’t find their offices at the passenger terminal. Ron Labac had a huge laugh on me before telling me the World Way I needed to get to was via Playa del Rey! An hour later and I was escorted to the fifth floor to meet the Flying Tiger executives for the first time. I was taken into the office of the number one sales guy, Gary Runyon who was a podgy overweight gentleman dressed in a crumpled Macy’s suit but at forty-five still with his California blond locks. The other three, Ron Labac, Jim Haggerty and Mike Scanlan could not have appeared more the opposite. All three could have been those models straight out of GQ with their Brioni suits, white Armani shirts with Italian silk ties with highly polished Bally shoes!

All five of us hit it off like a house on fire and apart from Gary, who moved over to Qantas after the FedEx merger, Ron, Jim and Mike have enjoyed a twenty-one year friendship and business relationship. CII in the nineties became on of FedEx’s largest forwarder customers in the States and today we still remain a big supporter. Ron, Jim and Mike may have seen a number of bosses come and go at Memphis HQ, but for us FedEx has been a constant. All this will come to a close, when the junior of the three Mike Scanlan retires at the end of the month. For the CII team and me personally it will be a huge loss for us with Mike no longer around. Mike made the mistake many years ago giving Peter and me his home phone number. In the days when Pete and I together spent all day Saturday fifty weeks a year overseeing operations and even building the ULD’s and then following the freight over to the Allied Way terminal to make sure all was okay for acceptance, if there was a slight chance our freight would not ride as booked, we had no hesitation calling Mike at home, “Hey Mike, we’re worried you’re heavily overbooked, our freight including the extra units have to move!” Mike was always a great sport and Pete and I can vouch he always followed through and his confirming call on Sunday told us the good news and sometimes the bad news. His wife Ginny and daughter, Kelly in those halcyon days always wanted to meet this Peter and Julian, the two guys who consistently turned Mike into a seven day a week FedEx manager at the expense of them enjoying a relaxing family weekend! “Just who are these guys, don’t they have families too?”

After twenty-one years sadly we are going to miss Mike. When daughter Kelly was five, Mike made a conscious decision that family was more important than his career. At Flying Tigers he had became part of senior management which involved much travel. In 1988 he took a demotion to L.A. rep and as far as he is concerned it was the smartest move he ever made. From a selfish point of view FedEx’s loss in not being able to take advantage of Mike’s true worth was our gain. There is not one man in the airline industry who can hold a candle to Mike. No airline executive has worked as hard for us as Mike. But apples don’t fall far from the tree! His old Flying Tiger family of Ron Labac, Jim Haggerty and Beverly Bolin also rank among the best of the best. When CII started in 1993, we had to ask for airline credit. The only airline at the get-go that put its hand up was FedEx. Mike placed a little pressure upon Jim to go into battle for us and Jim told the V.P. of credit in Memphis, “I know this guy Keeling and I am so confident of him being a great customer into the future, I will personally vouch for him.” Without Mike and Jim, there would be no CII and Pete and I to this day owe them both a huge debt of gratitude.

So there it is; the end of a wonderful era where CII without the start Jim and Mike gave us, this blog would not exist and CII will have remained an unfulfilled dream. For twenty-one years I have dealt with Mike and he has been an outstanding ambassador for his company. On many an occasion we didn’t get what we were seeking, but Mike was always fair. In fact, more than fair; he is a total class act as a human being. In this age where we now live in an “it is all about me” society and friends remain friends so long as they are useful, gentlemen like Mike Scanlan are going the way of the dinosaur. Little wonder Pete and I know there will be a real emptiness from next month because Mike will not be picking up extension 4166 anymore. Some consolation is we still have Jim, Ron and Bev!

Tags: CII, FedEX, Flying Tigers, Gary Runyon, Jim Haggerty, Mike Scanlan, Ron Labac