On July 7, 2014, American Airlines Chairman and CEO, Doug Parker, announced that groundbreaking would commence on the following day for a state-of-the-art Integrated Operations Center, named after former Vice Chairman, Robert W. Baker. Mr. Baker understood integrated operations, especially when it came to the integration of the head and heart in business.

    The Foundation's June and July Wednesday Wisdom articles featured interviews with a passenger and an employee survivor of the crash of American Airlines Flight 1420, June 1, 1999. While interviewing survivors of the accident, I reflected upon Mr. Baker's enormous contribution to survivor assistance programs in aviation and industrial tragedies in general. Before moving to another subject for this series, I felt compelled to write an article about Mr. Baker.

    Mr. Baker followed in his father's footsteps when he joined American Airlines in 1968. His father served the airline for forty-one years, while Bob worked there for thirty-five years. He held many jobs in his tenure at American and finished his career as Executive Vice President of Operations in 1989 and Vice Chairman in 2000. During that time, he presided over four fatal crashes and in doing so, ushered in the American Airlines CARE Team.

    My research on survivors of airline accidents began in the late eighties, and many of the lessons learned came from interviews with survivors and employee responders from crashes that occurred during his tenure. I spoke with Mr. Baker more than once toward the end of his career, and in my book Handbook for Human Services Response[1], I quoted highlights from a 2001 videotaped interview. Looking back at those comments today, it is no wonder that he was the first interviewee in my chapter on Conscious Leaders. In the following selected quotes, Mr. Baker summarized his perspective on support for those impacted by an airline crash.

    Our priorities have to be survivors, families, and employees. Only when you have that on the mend can you begin to worry about the legal implications of an accident. The legal consequences of the disaster must come after the people have been looked after.

    What we do initially is very important to provide the support. Getting people into hotels, getting them the clothes they need, (people) don't think of things like this, but we have to think about these things and provide them. And then (to) give them a contact to work with them during the entire process is where our CARE Team comes into play.

    While all of that is going on and our teams of employees are launched, the airline community has a big set of issues to deal with as well. Most of our people have given their adult life to working for the airline. We spend every waking hour of our lives trying to run an airline as safely as any airline in the world. We are constantly talking and pushing that approach at our employees. And so, when we lose an airplane it is a traumatic shock to the airline community.

    All of the employees want to know what happened. Someone in the media asked me what it was like to have an accident. I explained that it is the next worse thing to losing a family member for an employee to work for an airline that has had an accident. We have to deal with the employees too, because they too have to get closure. But they have to participate in the process too and it is a very long process.

    When I asked about saying sorry—a crucial part of showing heart—his response resonated with me. His response matched what leading plaintiff's lawyers have told me. Expressing sorrow is a necessity on the part of any company where a tragedy occurs in their workplace.

    I think it is critically important. I grew up saying I am sorry; I say it regularly to my wife of 35 years. It is important to relationships, when something happens to impact others and you are looked upon as having created the problem. And at the time of the airline disaster, it is the airline's responsibility. I think it is super critical.