Portrait of Competence: Sully Sullenberger

Chesley B. Sullenberger has logged over 19,000 hours piloting various aircraft. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1973 and flew nearly 7 years as an Air Force pilot, mainly in the F4 Phantom fighter, leaving the service as a Captain. During his Air Force years he also acquired two masters degrees, one from Purdue in Industrial Psychology and one from the University of Northern Colorado in Public Administration.

After leaving the Air Force, Sullenberger went to work as an airline pilot for US Airways, where he has worked since 1980. He has developed safety protocols for airline safety, helped the US NTSB investigate airline accidents, and runs a safety consulting firm.

From a Time Magazine 2 Minute Biography of US Airways Flight 1549 Pilot Chesley Sullenberger

58 year old pilot Sullenberger was not expecting to land in the Hudson River that day, he did not make a practise of it. But fate decided to cripple the engines on Sully's airbus (150 passengers, 5 crew) minutes after takeoff. Only five minutes separated the sudden disabling of the planes engines from the successful landing in the Hudson.

Sullenberger's moment of deliberate thought probably went something like this: He needed to make a decision about where to land. He had to carefully weigh the risk of not being able to make the Teterboro airport against the risk of landing in freezing water. The decision required him to weigh numerous variables. How quickly was he losing altitude? Could he clear the George Washington Bridge? Would he be able to steer the plane without thrust? He probably had only a few seconds to consider all this information, but Sullenberger wisely realized that the Hudson was his best option. _LAT

He was doing his job, and he did it without taking a poll, without leaning on advisors, without a teleprompter or an army of flacks running interference. It was all on his shoulders and -- with the help of his similarly experienced and competent co-pilot -- Sullenberger put the jetliner in the water exactly as necessary to maximise the safety of passengers and crew.

After the cabin crew led most of the passengers through the wing exits and onto the wings, Sullenberger went through the entire plane twice to make absolutely sure that no one was left onboard. He was last to leave the plane.

Competence like that doesn't come from being able to talk a good game, or from being able to charm people at a cocktail party or a political rally. Such competence is an everyday matter of fact routine in hundreds of different jobs, at most every airport, hospital, military base, EMS and Fire Dept., factory, power plant, school, construction site, etc. But it is rare for such competence to be celebrated by the news media or the public.

Here's to everyday, largely uncelebrated competence. It's there, waiting for when it will needed. But it took work to develop, and takes time and effort to maintain.

While society shines an adoring spotlight on celebrities, sports stars, and the chosen messiah du jour, remember that somewhere out there are genuinely competent people who are making your relatively affluent and pampered lives possible, mostly in spite of what the media stars are doing.

When you least expect it, the fecal matter will make contact with the rotating metal blades. You will want all the competence around you possible, when that happens.

In a superficial society like ours, how is it that we still have people like Chesley Sullenberger? If there are more such competent and conscientious people in the pipeline, where do they come from? Are they really as rare as they often seem?