Missed Opportunities and Missed Pleasures

Sometimes you just don’t know. We all go through life sitting next to people in a meeting, working with them on a project, or encountering them at the same events but most of the time we don’t know what we don’t know and we don’t know what we’re missing. Here’s a good example: I was a member of the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory from 1990 to 1993, appointed by the late Councilman Marvin Braude. At my very first meeting, when it was time for that dreaded instrument of democracy “public comment” I was attacked as another appointee solely interested in what was good for the business community, not the whole community. That attack came from one of the Valley’s best-known gadflies. (There are two dictionary definitions of a “gadfly;” the first is, “a fly that irritates livestock by biting them and sucking their blood”; the second is, “somebody regarded as persistently annoying or irritating.” Of course, I make reference only to the latter definition.) By pure happenstance, at that first meeting I had seated myself next to an African- American Council member, who leaned over and said, “Don’t let him upset you. He’s always like that.” For the next several years, Alexton Boone and I sat next to each other, exchanging pleasantries, chatting briefly before and after the meetings. We never saw each other outside of the Council meetings. Several years later, in July 1996, I read his obituary in the Daily News. The first line in Barbara Wood’s obituary was: “Services have been held for Alexton Squire Boone, one of the original members of Tuskegee Airmen, the all-African-American World War II flying squadron.” There it was: Alexton Boone was a member of one of the most famous group of heroes in the war, and I never knew it. The stories he could have told me, the people he had known, and the incredible challenges he overcame and all I had to do was invite him to have lunch with me; it was never to be. I was particularly vicious in verbally kicking myself since the Tuskegee Airman had been one of my interests for years. From 1942 through 1946, 992 Black pilots graduated from Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama. They fought two wars: one against the Germans and another against racism from their fellow Americans. They came out of the war with a near-unbelievable record: these fighter pilots flew 200 missions escorting bombers, and not one was lost to enemy fire. In fact, they were the Army Air Corps’ (later the U.S. Air Force) only escort group that did not lose a single bomber to enemy planes. Boone was part of a unit that destroyed or damaged 409 enemy aircraft while flying 1,578 missions, and earned a Presidential Unit Citation, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses more than 850 medals in all, fighting in Africa, Italy, and France. Until 1939, the Army Air Corps refused to accept Blacks into its ranks, and it took an act of Congress to change that policy. The slights, smears, and segregation were just part of the indignities they endured and overcame. If you think that’s a singular story, let me tell you about Ralph Tarr. Ralph is a lawyer, one of the best (no lawyer jokes, please). For most of the past 19 years, he has run the Los Angeles office of Andrews Kurth LLP, a Houston law firm founded in 1902. Ralph was on my executive committee when I was Chairman of VICA, and his sage but quietly delivered counsel was appreciated by all. Unexpectedly, Andrews Kurth shuttered their Los Angeles office, another recession victim. When I heard about it, I asked Ralph to give me a copy of his resume so I could share it with others I know in his field. Now I’ve seen lots of impressive resumes before, but not many could match Ralph’s. But what really caught my eye was the fact that he was the chief legal counsel for the U.S. Department of the Interior…and he chaired the entire investigation and legal issues surrounding the Exxon Valdez Alaskan oil spill. …And just months ago I had completed a lengthy chapter on crisis management that will soon be published in a book on that topic. Of course, I spent hours and hours researching the crisis communications issues related to…the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Had I but known that this was just one of Ralph Tarr’s arrows in his legal quiver I could have saved weeks of work, and gotten the facts directly from as it were the horse’s mouth. Previously, Ralph was the U.S. Attorney General’s lawyer, and has held lots of other impressive positions in the federal and state governments and as a successful law firm partner…but I missed out on getting the inside scoop on the Exxon Valdez story. Sometimes you just don’t know. There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out.” Russian proverb Martin Cooper is President of Cooper Communications, Inc. He is President of the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission, Founding President of The Executives, Vice Chairman-Marketing of the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley, and a member of the Boards of the Valley Economic Alliance and of the LAPD’s West Valley Jeopardy Program. He is a Past Chairman of VICA and Chairman of its Board of Governors, Past President of the Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles Chapter, and Past President of the Encino Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at mcooper@cooper comm.net.