Ken Chapman & Assoc.
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Motivating Biographical Stories

Rickenbacker
Copyright © All rights reserved
By Ken Chapman, Ph.D.
 Ken Chapman & Associates, Inc.

     What do these three men have in common—the auto racer who set the world’s speed record at Daytona in 1914, the pilot who recorded the highest number of victories in aerial combat against the Germans in World War I, and the secretary of war’s special advisor who survived a plane crash and twenty-two days on a raft in the Pacific Ocean during World War II?  They all lived through dangerous circumstances, they all displayed courage and steely nerves under duress, and they all happen to be the same person—Eddie Rickenbacker. 

     Meeting a challenge was never a big problem for Eddie Rickenbacker, whether it was physical, mental, or economic.  When he was twelve, his father died and he quit school to become the family’s primary breadwinner.  He sold newspapers, eggs, and goats’ milk.  He worked in a glass factory, brewery, shoe factory, and foundry.  Then as a teenager, he started working as a race car mechanic, and at age twenty-two, he began racing.  Two years later, he set the world's speed record.

     When the United States entered World War I, Rickenbacker tried to enlist as an aviator, but he was overaged and undereducated.  So instead, he entered as a chauffeur and then talked his superiors into sending him to flight training.  Despite not fitting in with his college educated fellow aviators, he excelled as a pilot and by the time the war was over, he had logged three-hundred combat hours, the most of any American pilot.  Moreover, he survived 134 aerial encounters with the enemy, claimed twenty-six kills, earned the Medal of Honor, eight distinguished Service Crosses, and the French Legion of Honor.  He was also promoted to Captain and put in command of his squadron. 

     Rickenbacker’s prowess in the air caused the press to dub him the “American Ace of Aces.”  When asked about his courage in combat, he admitted that he had been afraid.  “Courage,” he said, “is doing what you’re afraid to do.  There can be no courage unless you’re scared.”

     That courage served the Ace of Aces well during World War I.  In 1933, he became the vice president of Eastern Air Transport, later Eastern Air Lines.  Back then, all airlines existed only because they were subsidized by the government, but Rickenbacker thought they should be self-sufficient.  He decided to completely change the way the company did business.  Within two years, he made Eastern profitable, a first in aviation history.  And when the President of the United States cancelled all commercial carriers airmail contracts, Rickenbacker took him on and won.  Rickenbacker led Eastern successfully for thirty years and retired at age seventy-three.  When he died ten years later, his son, William, wrote, “If he had a motto, it must have been the phrase I’ve heard a thousand times, ‘If you’re gonna lead, do what’s right and do it now.’ ”

For more information about Ken Chapman and Associates’ Leadership Development Programs, contact Ken Chapman at 205.366.0265 or email Ken at kchapman@leaderscode.com.

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