- Aug 25, 2005
- 1,171
- 5
The following is from the AZ Republic concerning the merger. Reading the story should shed some light on what our CEO is all about. 
Dawn Gilbertson
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 18, 2005 12:00 AM
When he returned to his hotel room late Wednesday after dinner with Pittsburgh power brokers, Doug Parker turned on the Arizona Diamondbacks game and set his alarm for 5:30 a.m.
The CEO of America West Airlines wanted to get up early to work off the three-course meal and mouthwatering macaroons they served at the historic Duquesne Club.
The buzzer went off, but Parker didn't lace up his white-and-orange Saucony running shoes. He crawled back into bed for an hour. advertisement
Parker can be excused for hitting the snooze button. America West's pending merger with US Airways has turned him into a traveling salesman with a singular mission: Pitching the benefits of the deal.
The 43-year-old executive, who usually tries to be away from home no more than a few times a month for a night or two at most, has crisscrossed the country this summer to meet with employees, business and political leaders, analysts and the media - sometimes in one trip.
Last week saw him jetting from Tempe to New York City to Pittsburgh and back between Tuesday afternoon and Thursday night.
He's seen enough in-flight movies to give Monster-in-Law more stars than XXX: State of the Union and has a new appreciation for America West's frequent fliers.
Parker has had cause to run non-stop. He engineered the merger and will lead the new US Airways, a company with more than double the employees of America West and close to five times the annual revenue. It is the biggest bet of his career, a merger that promises to change forever what is normal for Parker.
He is, he says, simply doing his job. Still, the pace has been grueling, the miles etched in his face.
Colleagues watch him doze off before takeoff on most flights and can tell he's put on a few pounds. His mother e-mails from Nashville and says she's proud but worried because he looks tired. (He doesn't reply). His three kids, ages 5 to 10, tell him he's never home (and ask why he's not going to work for America West anymore).
Asked to sum up the past few months, Parker pauses, then says, "From a work perspective, extremely exciting.
"From a family perspective, not so exciting."
Last-minute trips
Parker is no stranger to harried times. The airline industry is full of them. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks hit 10 days after he became CEO. America West didn't have enough cash to withstand the travel downturn and nearly went bankrupt. Parker shuttled back and forth to Washington, D.C., and New York in search of critical financing. The company got the loans.
The merger mania is under happier circumstances but stretched out over a longer time. The two companies started talking in February, announced the deal May 19 and plan to complete it next week.
Parker said the toughest thing has been the unpredictability of his schedule. He normally knows in advance when he's going to be away. But these trips have mostly been last-minute.
Boston investment manager Ed Shapiro, whose firm is investing $100 million in the merger, saw Parker's juggling act in April. A major meeting of potential investors was planned in Washington, D.C. Parker already had arranged to go with his wife, Gwen, to the Boston Red Sox home opener. Former Diamondback Curt Schilling, then injured, plays for Boston, and the families know each other from preschool.
Other America West executives told Shapiro it might be hard for Parker to make it. He was there, hopping the US Airways shuttle from Boston after the game. Shapiro was impressed.
Summer sprint
After the merger was announced May 19, the pace accelerated. Parker and other America West executives had to lobby for key merger approvals in Washington, D.C., visit US Airways employees and operations, schmooze Wall Street and (his least favorite part) court the media.
He warned his wife what was ahead.
Her reply: "I'm going to act as though I'm a single mom. Let me know when you're back to normal."
In June, Parker was gone nearly half the month. He tried to keep as many family commitments as he could. After a day of presentations at Merrill Lynch in New York, he ducked out early to make it back to Phoenix for his eldest son's baseball game. Chief Financial Officer Derek Kerr stayed behind for one-on-one meetings with investors.
When America West announced new service to Hawaii at Roy's restaurant in July, Parker attended, with a flower lei around his neck. He couldn't stay for the crab cakes or the island ahi because he had a plane to catch to Washington, D.C.Colleagues rushed him out of the restaurant to make the afternoon flight.
Phoenix Aviation Director Dave Krietor thought then that the CEO always described as boyish already had aged a bunch.
Parker sneaked in a working vacation with his family in early August. European aircraft-maker Airbus, a player in the merger with a $250 million loan and a slew of planes at both airlines, holds a weeklong event on Maui each year.
One day, he had to be up for a 5 a.m. conference call. His executive secretary put asterisks beside it on his calendar because of the big time difference.
East Coast swings
A few days later, Parker headed for three whirlwind days of meeting and greeting in Charlotte, N.C., and Philadelphia. They are US Airways' key hubs and will remain so for the new company. Philadelphia brings in the most money, and Charlotte has the most daily flights.
Somewhere between the two cities, Parker lost his razor. He called C.A. Howlett, the airline's senior vice president of public affairs, who was already in the lobby ready for the day's meetings. Howlett rushed out and bought him a razor but couldn't find any shaving cream.
Parker didn't flinch. He shaved his dry face in a US Airways executive's Lexus on the way to a meeting with the mayor.
He was back in Philadelphia 10 days later, the same day he saw his youngest child off to kindergarten. And he had a present waiting at the front desk of the Philadelphia Airport Marriott.
He put his luggage down and unwrapped the bright, striped wrapping paper to find a Tiffany box. Inside was a razor and some shaving cream. He laughed and shared the joke with colleagues. No one at US Airways has owned up to the gag.
15 hours, 2,800 miles
The next day - a brutal day designed for maximum PR exposure - stands out as the craziest of a crazy summer as employees in the East and West saw the first plane painted with the new US Airways paint scheme.
It started at 6 a.m. in the hotel dining room in Philadelphia and ended 15 hours and 2,800 miles later at America West's hangar at Sky Harbor International Airport. Stops on the way: Pittsburgh, Charlotte and Las Vegas.
Parker, US Airways CEO Bruce Lakefield and a plane full of employees, union officials from both sides and reporters made the rounds.
When the convoy was boarding the plane for the first flight, the head of the Philadelphia airport had some parting advice for Parker: "Take a breath every once in a while."
On the flight to Pittsburgh, the head of America West's pilots union was sitting diagonally from Parker on the Airbus 320. J.R. Baker joked that he knew the service would be good since Parker was so close.
In Pittsburgh, crowds were thick, television cameras were everywhere and US Airways employees crowded around Parker to meet him and take photos with him.
When Parker got back on the plane for the flight to Charlotte, a flight attendant asked him if he felt like a movie star now.
"I wouldn't go that far," he said.
As he started to doze off, one of America West's public-relations people nabbed him for another in-flight interview.
On the longest leg of the trip, to Las Vegas, Parker put his suit jacket in the overhead and stretched out in his window seat.
He'd barely settled in when Howlett approached his row looking for a seat and some conversation. He noticed how comfy Parker looked and said, "Oh, are you going to sleep?"
When the plane landed in Phoenix, Parker's wife and kids were in the front row. Parker picked up his new kindergartner and gave her a kiss and a hug before going onstage.
Let's Get it Started was playing on the loudspeakers.
Less than 24 hours later, Parker was back on a plane, this time to Washington, D.C., for two days of US Airways creditor committee meetings.
He looked at the bright side: He got to sleep in his own bed for one night between trips.
Pleas in Pittsburgh
Before he headed out on last week's trip to New York and Pittsburgh, Parker presided over America West's last shareholders meeting.
Usually boring affairs that stick to a script, this one was spiced up by picketing flight attendants and a cantankerous shareholder he has tangled with before.
Parker, easygoing and quick with a laugh, injected some humor. When the shareholder told him he has never sold a share of America West stock all these years, like Parker, the CEO said that was good. Then he reconsidered and joked, "I'm not sure that is good."
Parker took off for New York that afternoon.
Less than 24 hours later and after a blur of meetings, he checked into the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh.
Controversial author Salman Rushdie was doing a reading at the theater next door.
Pittsburgh used to be US Airways' major hub but the airline's presence there has shrunk dramatically. Every business leader and politician wanted to make a pitch to bring back some of the flights, especially to Europe.
A Pittsburgh newspaper said Parker was so in demand that he was he was more popular that day than the best-known Parker in Pittsburgh, Steelers star Willie Parker.
In the Founders Room at the Duquesne Club on Wednesday night, he was treated like a corporate icon in an Old World building with the walls lined with gold-framed paintings of Pittsburgh business icons named Carnegie and Frick.
Parker ordered the club's signature fish dish, lightly breaded Virginia Spot, and the staff sent him home with a package of their trademark macaroons. Prince Charles had them on his visit.
Final leg
First thing Thursday, on the last day of the trip, Parker grabbed a diet soda from the hotel minibar. It's his caffeine of choice (he doesn't drink coffee).
Parker was back at the club by 7:30 for back-to-back meetings with more business leaders, airport officials and politicians. One of his hosts told him she calls those days Groundhog Days, after the Bill Murray movie. Parker had already been to a breakfast meeting, a lunch meeting and three in between by the time he headed to a two-hour session with US Airways employees at Pittsburgh International Airport on Thursday afternoon.
He walked into the room and immediately took off his blue pinstriped suit jacket.
He pulled a chair up to the conference room table and began to introduce himself.
Then he realized something was missing.
"I have one request," he said. "Can I get a Diet Coke?"
He mumbled something about needing caffeine.
The soda was in front of him within minutes, but there was a tiny problem. It was caffeine-free. Parker didn't say a word but says he "about died" when he saw it.
Meeting with employees is Parker's favorite thing to do and it showed. He joked with the workers and didn't talk in business babble.
When a manager's cellphone started ringing during the meeting, he said, "That's a lovely tune."
A worker told Parker the Pittsburgh employees are such a collegial, hard-working bunch that he'd quit his job if he worked with them for a day.
"That sounds pretty damn appealing at this point," Parker said, laughing.
Parker playfully said "no" when another employee asked if he could pose a follow-up question.
"You're all right, brother," he told Parker.
Parker admitted the pay cuts and job losses they've been through "really sucked" but were necessary given US Airways' high costs.
He said the closing of the merger next weeks means "we're one big happy family and will have a lot of money coming in."
As they've done in other US Airways cities, the workers thanked Parker over and over for meeting with them. Previous CEOs didn't take the time, they said.
Parker grew uncomfortable with the all the attention and admitted he was having a hard time saying thanks. He said the merger is a huge team effort, his trips essential to his role on the team.
"It's my job, for God's sake," he said. "I can't do my job without being here."
Reporter Dawn Gilbertson has shadowed Parker this summer, making trips, including last week's visit to Pittsburgh, and attending local events. Reach her at [email protected] or (602) 444-8617
DONT HIT REPLY>>>>OR THIS THREAD WILL GET EXTREMELY LONG
Dawn Gilbertson
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 18, 2005 12:00 AM
When he returned to his hotel room late Wednesday after dinner with Pittsburgh power brokers, Doug Parker turned on the Arizona Diamondbacks game and set his alarm for 5:30 a.m.
The CEO of America West Airlines wanted to get up early to work off the three-course meal and mouthwatering macaroons they served at the historic Duquesne Club.
The buzzer went off, but Parker didn't lace up his white-and-orange Saucony running shoes. He crawled back into bed for an hour. advertisement
Parker can be excused for hitting the snooze button. America West's pending merger with US Airways has turned him into a traveling salesman with a singular mission: Pitching the benefits of the deal.
The 43-year-old executive, who usually tries to be away from home no more than a few times a month for a night or two at most, has crisscrossed the country this summer to meet with employees, business and political leaders, analysts and the media - sometimes in one trip.
Last week saw him jetting from Tempe to New York City to Pittsburgh and back between Tuesday afternoon and Thursday night.
He's seen enough in-flight movies to give Monster-in-Law more stars than XXX: State of the Union and has a new appreciation for America West's frequent fliers.
Parker has had cause to run non-stop. He engineered the merger and will lead the new US Airways, a company with more than double the employees of America West and close to five times the annual revenue. It is the biggest bet of his career, a merger that promises to change forever what is normal for Parker.
He is, he says, simply doing his job. Still, the pace has been grueling, the miles etched in his face.
Colleagues watch him doze off before takeoff on most flights and can tell he's put on a few pounds. His mother e-mails from Nashville and says she's proud but worried because he looks tired. (He doesn't reply). His three kids, ages 5 to 10, tell him he's never home (and ask why he's not going to work for America West anymore).
Asked to sum up the past few months, Parker pauses, then says, "From a work perspective, extremely exciting.
"From a family perspective, not so exciting."
Last-minute trips
Parker is no stranger to harried times. The airline industry is full of them. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks hit 10 days after he became CEO. America West didn't have enough cash to withstand the travel downturn and nearly went bankrupt. Parker shuttled back and forth to Washington, D.C., and New York in search of critical financing. The company got the loans.
The merger mania is under happier circumstances but stretched out over a longer time. The two companies started talking in February, announced the deal May 19 and plan to complete it next week.
Parker said the toughest thing has been the unpredictability of his schedule. He normally knows in advance when he's going to be away. But these trips have mostly been last-minute.
Boston investment manager Ed Shapiro, whose firm is investing $100 million in the merger, saw Parker's juggling act in April. A major meeting of potential investors was planned in Washington, D.C. Parker already had arranged to go with his wife, Gwen, to the Boston Red Sox home opener. Former Diamondback Curt Schilling, then injured, plays for Boston, and the families know each other from preschool.
Other America West executives told Shapiro it might be hard for Parker to make it. He was there, hopping the US Airways shuttle from Boston after the game. Shapiro was impressed.
Summer sprint
After the merger was announced May 19, the pace accelerated. Parker and other America West executives had to lobby for key merger approvals in Washington, D.C., visit US Airways employees and operations, schmooze Wall Street and (his least favorite part) court the media.
He warned his wife what was ahead.
Her reply: "I'm going to act as though I'm a single mom. Let me know when you're back to normal."
In June, Parker was gone nearly half the month. He tried to keep as many family commitments as he could. After a day of presentations at Merrill Lynch in New York, he ducked out early to make it back to Phoenix for his eldest son's baseball game. Chief Financial Officer Derek Kerr stayed behind for one-on-one meetings with investors.
When America West announced new service to Hawaii at Roy's restaurant in July, Parker attended, with a flower lei around his neck. He couldn't stay for the crab cakes or the island ahi because he had a plane to catch to Washington, D.C.Colleagues rushed him out of the restaurant to make the afternoon flight.
Phoenix Aviation Director Dave Krietor thought then that the CEO always described as boyish already had aged a bunch.
Parker sneaked in a working vacation with his family in early August. European aircraft-maker Airbus, a player in the merger with a $250 million loan and a slew of planes at both airlines, holds a weeklong event on Maui each year.
One day, he had to be up for a 5 a.m. conference call. His executive secretary put asterisks beside it on his calendar because of the big time difference.
East Coast swings
A few days later, Parker headed for three whirlwind days of meeting and greeting in Charlotte, N.C., and Philadelphia. They are US Airways' key hubs and will remain so for the new company. Philadelphia brings in the most money, and Charlotte has the most daily flights.
Somewhere between the two cities, Parker lost his razor. He called C.A. Howlett, the airline's senior vice president of public affairs, who was already in the lobby ready for the day's meetings. Howlett rushed out and bought him a razor but couldn't find any shaving cream.
Parker didn't flinch. He shaved his dry face in a US Airways executive's Lexus on the way to a meeting with the mayor.
He was back in Philadelphia 10 days later, the same day he saw his youngest child off to kindergarten. And he had a present waiting at the front desk of the Philadelphia Airport Marriott.
He put his luggage down and unwrapped the bright, striped wrapping paper to find a Tiffany box. Inside was a razor and some shaving cream. He laughed and shared the joke with colleagues. No one at US Airways has owned up to the gag.
15 hours, 2,800 miles
The next day - a brutal day designed for maximum PR exposure - stands out as the craziest of a crazy summer as employees in the East and West saw the first plane painted with the new US Airways paint scheme.
It started at 6 a.m. in the hotel dining room in Philadelphia and ended 15 hours and 2,800 miles later at America West's hangar at Sky Harbor International Airport. Stops on the way: Pittsburgh, Charlotte and Las Vegas.
Parker, US Airways CEO Bruce Lakefield and a plane full of employees, union officials from both sides and reporters made the rounds.
When the convoy was boarding the plane for the first flight, the head of the Philadelphia airport had some parting advice for Parker: "Take a breath every once in a while."
On the flight to Pittsburgh, the head of America West's pilots union was sitting diagonally from Parker on the Airbus 320. J.R. Baker joked that he knew the service would be good since Parker was so close.
In Pittsburgh, crowds were thick, television cameras were everywhere and US Airways employees crowded around Parker to meet him and take photos with him.
When Parker got back on the plane for the flight to Charlotte, a flight attendant asked him if he felt like a movie star now.
"I wouldn't go that far," he said.
As he started to doze off, one of America West's public-relations people nabbed him for another in-flight interview.
On the longest leg of the trip, to Las Vegas, Parker put his suit jacket in the overhead and stretched out in his window seat.
He'd barely settled in when Howlett approached his row looking for a seat and some conversation. He noticed how comfy Parker looked and said, "Oh, are you going to sleep?"
When the plane landed in Phoenix, Parker's wife and kids were in the front row. Parker picked up his new kindergartner and gave her a kiss and a hug before going onstage.
Let's Get it Started was playing on the loudspeakers.
Less than 24 hours later, Parker was back on a plane, this time to Washington, D.C., for two days of US Airways creditor committee meetings.
He looked at the bright side: He got to sleep in his own bed for one night between trips.
Pleas in Pittsburgh
Before he headed out on last week's trip to New York and Pittsburgh, Parker presided over America West's last shareholders meeting.
Usually boring affairs that stick to a script, this one was spiced up by picketing flight attendants and a cantankerous shareholder he has tangled with before.
Parker, easygoing and quick with a laugh, injected some humor. When the shareholder told him he has never sold a share of America West stock all these years, like Parker, the CEO said that was good. Then he reconsidered and joked, "I'm not sure that is good."
Parker took off for New York that afternoon.
Less than 24 hours later and after a blur of meetings, he checked into the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh.
Controversial author Salman Rushdie was doing a reading at the theater next door.
Pittsburgh used to be US Airways' major hub but the airline's presence there has shrunk dramatically. Every business leader and politician wanted to make a pitch to bring back some of the flights, especially to Europe.
A Pittsburgh newspaper said Parker was so in demand that he was he was more popular that day than the best-known Parker in Pittsburgh, Steelers star Willie Parker.
In the Founders Room at the Duquesne Club on Wednesday night, he was treated like a corporate icon in an Old World building with the walls lined with gold-framed paintings of Pittsburgh business icons named Carnegie and Frick.
Parker ordered the club's signature fish dish, lightly breaded Virginia Spot, and the staff sent him home with a package of their trademark macaroons. Prince Charles had them on his visit.
Final leg
First thing Thursday, on the last day of the trip, Parker grabbed a diet soda from the hotel minibar. It's his caffeine of choice (he doesn't drink coffee).
Parker was back at the club by 7:30 for back-to-back meetings with more business leaders, airport officials and politicians. One of his hosts told him she calls those days Groundhog Days, after the Bill Murray movie. Parker had already been to a breakfast meeting, a lunch meeting and three in between by the time he headed to a two-hour session with US Airways employees at Pittsburgh International Airport on Thursday afternoon.
He walked into the room and immediately took off his blue pinstriped suit jacket.
He pulled a chair up to the conference room table and began to introduce himself.
Then he realized something was missing.
"I have one request," he said. "Can I get a Diet Coke?"
He mumbled something about needing caffeine.
The soda was in front of him within minutes, but there was a tiny problem. It was caffeine-free. Parker didn't say a word but says he "about died" when he saw it.
Meeting with employees is Parker's favorite thing to do and it showed. He joked with the workers and didn't talk in business babble.
When a manager's cellphone started ringing during the meeting, he said, "That's a lovely tune."
A worker told Parker the Pittsburgh employees are such a collegial, hard-working bunch that he'd quit his job if he worked with them for a day.
"That sounds pretty damn appealing at this point," Parker said, laughing.
Parker playfully said "no" when another employee asked if he could pose a follow-up question.
"You're all right, brother," he told Parker.
Parker admitted the pay cuts and job losses they've been through "really sucked" but were necessary given US Airways' high costs.
He said the closing of the merger next weeks means "we're one big happy family and will have a lot of money coming in."
As they've done in other US Airways cities, the workers thanked Parker over and over for meeting with them. Previous CEOs didn't take the time, they said.
Parker grew uncomfortable with the all the attention and admitted he was having a hard time saying thanks. He said the merger is a huge team effort, his trips essential to his role on the team.
"It's my job, for God's sake," he said. "I can't do my job without being here."
Reporter Dawn Gilbertson has shadowed Parker this summer, making trips, including last week's visit to Pittsburgh, and attending local events. Reach her at [email protected] or (602) 444-8617
DONT HIT REPLY>>>>OR THIS THREAD WILL GET EXTREMELY LONG
