REMEMBERING THE GOOD TIMES

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jul 2, 2008 | by WAYNE HEILMAN

When William "Pat" Patterson retired as chief executive of United Airlines in 1966, he declined a multimillion-dollar "golden parachute" payment and instead took his pension like any other employee, his daughter told United retirees in Colorado Springs last week.

"He told me that 'I am going to take exactly my share because I can't take millions when I signed the papers'" creating United's pension plan, said Patricia Patterson Dudley, daughter of the late founder and longtime chief executive. "He never referred to the people who worked at United as employees. He called them his United family. "

That atmosphere disappeared from the airline industry more than a generation ago.

If Glenn Tilton, United's current chief executive, had been fired or left the carrier by the end of last year, he would have cleared up to $18 million in salary, benefits, perquisites, stock options and awards and other related payments, according to the airline's proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dudley, 79, told those stories and several others during a picnic Saturday for about 50 local United retirees sponsored by the 3- month-old Colorado Springs chapter of the Retired United Airlines Employees Association. The picnic was at aviation artist and former United mechanic Rick Broome's Broadmoor-area house, which includes part of a Boeing 727 aircraft in his studio.

Patterson began his business career as a banker and got involved in the aviation industry by making a loan to a small airline that was later acquired by Boeing Co. and merged with three others to create United.

Boeing hired Patterson in 1929 and named him general manager of the newly created United two years later. He ran the carrier for 35 years, pioneering the use of flight attendants, pressurized cabins and autopilot systems.

"We invited her here to share the good times. There are people here that worked at United during the good times, and they want to share that," said Chuck Stuller, who retired in 2003 after 40 years in customer service with the carrier and who organized the chapter. "This is a healing process for us. We need somebody to talk to and relate to during this hurting time. As former workers for this company, we still feel like it is a part of us."

Stuller said United retirees used up to 20 percent of their salaries to buy company stock as part of the employee stock ownership plan in the 1990s. The stock was worthless after United sought U.S. Bankruptcy Court protection in 2002. Employees also agreed to salary and benefit cuts to get the airline out of bankruptcy and pension payments were eventually reduced.

Dudley said her father always had a special affection for pilots because "when he started out, he told them he couldn't afford pay them and they said they would fly for free to keep the company going. If it wasn't for the pilots, there wouldn't be a United."

She also described how he always bought Standard Oil gasoline for his cars because the company kept providing fuel to United at no cost after Shell Oil had cut off shipments for nonpayment.

Although she had a brief career as a flight attendant with American Airlines and earned a private pilot's license, Dudley spent most of her life raising children in Denver and San Francisco from her marriage with American Airlines executive Jim Kennedy. She now lives in Mill Valley, Calif., near San Francisco.

Dudley didn't believe she was cut out for a career in aviation. On her first flight, she and her brother, William Patterson Jr., both got airsick. She told the Colorado Springs retirees she took flying lessons only because her father told her he had "thousands of pilots and he would find me one to fly wherever I wanted to go. Instead I went to the flying school and when they asked me about my parents, I told them they were afraid to fly."

Her father learned of her flying lessons when she flew over a barn on her first solo flight and he recognized his daughter in the cockpit. She later was told her flight made him turn "white as a sheet."

Dudley said her father wasn't all business. He once postponed a speech to the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board in Washington, D.C., so he could attend an annual father-daughter banquet at her elementary school.

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