BOOMER by Tim Engel (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

trying to lose weight by simply cutting calories. Her husband told her she needed to add exercise, so she got on the treadmill and walked. With his help , she shed the 40lbs. Dianed shared with us about her husband. He works for Boeing as well and works remotely. Or virtually. She said during one very tough stretch he started looking very sickly and like he was just breaking down. She visited Employee Assistance Program (EAP) asking for help. Eventually they got some good counseling which possibly saved his life and their marriage.
Mike had an eclectic and grounded style. He said that he wasn’t here to teach us about leadership, but to facilitate the process and environment in which we might be led to grow. As our CEO Mr McNerney says – Grow leaders, grow your business. He said that if he tried to fill us up with lots of good leadership stuff we’d be ready to mutiny after one day. I am delighted by the turn of events in the BLC. Primarily the curriculum and style. Mike chocks it up to a change in leadership at the center. Evidently the misery we experienced previously was primarily due to the leadership at the center. And evidently the leaders at Boeing and the training team were at loggerheads and nearly resulted in Mike’s company being tossed out.
So management changed on both sides and the result is amazing. No more working until all hours on busy work, projects, and presentations. Now the focus was on good, usable stuff and another big change. Leaders teaching leaders or LTL. This was the decision to bring in Boeing executives to talk with us on various subjects such as diversity, the Boeing Management Model, trust, and strengths. Now this change just feels right. Intuitively.
I remember meetings years ago at Boeing where it was all about fear and intimidation. ‘I’m the biggest baddest dude in the neighborhood, so you will support me in the manner to which I am entitled.’ Or else. Or else what? Or else I will do everything in my power to destroy your career, intimidate you, tell your boss what a piece of dirt you are. It’s hard to imagine now, but the company used to be run primarily by these types. Emotional, egotistical, power hungry, paranoid managers. Not leaders. Some were gentlemen. Some were polite and professional. But most were not. And this probably arose from a lack of training, lack of understanding, and a lack of caring. What was it to be a baby boomer amongst this time of change?
I think a time of finding our own way. Of playing the game while thinking is this what it’s about? Is this the style I should emulate? Early in my career I actually worked for some fine leaders. Ralph Mitchell, Bob Faulks, Joe Lombardo to name a few. All real gentlemen. One now runs Gulfstream (CEO). His coaching to me at that time was pick leaders you admire and try to emulate them. I picked him. For one. Joe was polite, professional, and smart. He questioned the status quo. When manual labor was simple and tedious, he sought automation. When bullies gathered to pounce on one of his, he would be there to defend us. If necessary. A fellow leader described him as a ‘world beater’. The description impressed me! When I hired into McDonnell Douglas in 1979 it was common knowledge that approximately 50% of the employees working at that time were eligible for retirement. Now, 31 years later, the same is true – or nearly so.
The speed of trust. This was one of the books we read for class. Pre-work they call it. The author talks about how if you have a trusting environment, everything speeds up. Efficiency and productivity go up and costs go down. Imagine that in America. In our global market, where we are now competing with Japan, China, Russia, Malaysia, and Mexico. Where we have farmed out many if not most of our manufacturing jobs to cheaper labor countries. And when we do this we offload our technology as well. We no longer build televisions in the USA. We let that technology go to Japan. They started out cheap, undercut our prices, drove us out of business, and then raised prices. We no longer build TV’s in the USA. And the same goes for more and more as we ‘farm it out’ of America to cut costs.
But are we really cutting costs? What is the real price of $8 tennis shoes at Wal Mart. Made in
China. As we buy the ‘cheap’ Chinese products at Wal Mart and send them our money, what are they doing with all of that income? Their standard of living has risen. That’s a good thing. But they are also building up their military. Building quiet submarines. Building huge bomb shelters. Hmmmm…I wonder what they have in mind?
And what about Harry who lives across the street who used to make tennis shoes in the city of Industry. What does he do now? Oh, he’s on welfare. What about Sally down the street who used to make dresses in the city of Vernon? Oh, she’s on welfare. What about Richard who used to make TV’s in Fresno? He works part time at Wal Mart. What is the new Industrial model in the US? As companies farm out parts and assemblies are they farming out potential profit at the same time? As we deal with foreign suppliers, we now have new organizations springing up. Supplier management and supplier quality. We have issues that arise that we used to manage in house. Technology differences, language barriers, shipping (distance) logistics, quality, schedule, process management to name a few. Where we thought we’d farm out a simple part to Mexico, now we have material issues, process issues, language issues, technology issues, shipping problems.
The answer was we would have Americans working on new technology, new ideas, smarter, less labor intensive jobs. Certainly some of this is true. Jobs have opened up in information technology, programming, data base management and the like. But the middle class seems to be getting worn away by these decisions. As we farm out fabrication and assembly jobs the great majority of kids who could get into these kinds of jobs without degrees are now left looking elsewhere for positions. McDonald’s, Wal Mart, NAPA auto parts, etc. Decent careers ca be had in these businesses. But manufacturing jobs were good, wealth producing jobs. And now there are many less. Our automobile industry has been crushed. Many of the big 3 autos are not even built in the US any longer. In the recent bail outs by the US Government, only Ford chose not to take the handouts. And they appear to be the strongest of the three coming out of this terrible recession. And proudly led by an aerspace executive, Alan Mulally.
I believe the key is we all need to be smart about the decisions we make. The cars we buy, the jobs we offload, the loans we take. The politicians we vote into office. It all matters. And when we vote or make a decision to give a retired Highway patrol officer a 6 figure income for life, we must ask ourselves, is this sustainable? The same goes for Teachers, Police officers, Firemen, and the like. Recent revelation into public unions, elected officials like the mayor and city manager of the city of Bell has revealed telling stories about why our Government suddenly finds itself insolvent. And the talk of taking away Social Security benefits. This one is particularly tender as I reach the age where I begin to think of retirement. Politicians have for decades sipohoned money off our Social Security funds to use for other projects. Now that everyone is greedy and the system is becoming insolvent, they talk of ‘taking away’ from social security benefits. I say go back to LBJ and take the money from his family. He’s the one who started taking money for other politically ripe issues. We have worked all these years paying our money into the system and now that they’ve been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar they want to cut benefits.
I like another approach. Cut the cheating, cut the corruption. There are people dedicated to stealing from soc security and medicare by bilking the government for millions. 60 minutes ran a story a few weeks back about medicare scammers who set up medical supply houses. In strip malls. Theyk never even open their doors, but send the government bills for millions of dollars. The Govt is required to make payments within a certain period so they quickly pay. And Joe bag of donuts disappears with millions of our money and meanwhile your local Democrat wants to cut benefits to social security and medicare recipients. Wrong!!
How did I get from Knott’s Berry Farm to Medicare? One of my favorite rides at KBF wa the burro ride. Yeah, they actually had an animal ride.

This was one of my favorite rides. Getting to ride on a real animal. Being a ‘city boy’ we really didn’t get exposed to animals very often. The occasional horny toad or barn owl was about the size of our critter collection. But getting to ride a real burro. How cool is that? I think the closest thing I had done to this was a big tall red horse at Green Oaks Ranch Camp. It was a Christian camp I went to with Tom and the next door boy who was Tom’s age, Gerry Gregor. Gerry’s mom was a very sweet lady and was like having a second Mom living next door.
The burro ride started out near the train station and headed up through the main drag of ghost town and around the Calico Mine Ride. I remember seeing a whole bevy of burros. A veritable herd. And I wondered, even as a lad, how the burros were so well behaved. They didn’t bite, charge out across the ghost town, stage a sit down strike or any of the sort. I thrilled at the chance to ride the burros. I got to be a cowboy of sorts.
A cowboy. I was named after Tim McCoy. A real cowboy, born in 1891. He was also an actor. A fine one at that. And a fine American – serving in The Great War (WWI) and WWII. He rose to the rank of Colonel in the Army Air Corps. McCoy was quite famous, especially with young boys of the era, so that he appeared on the cover of Wheaties cereal boxes. Before joining the military he saw a Wild West show as a young man and became involved in the culture by getting a job at a Wyoming ranch. There he became an accomplished roper, rider, and expert at Indian sign language. He