SPEAKER_02 0:58

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum Foundation in Garden City, New York. This program, like the Pan Am Museum itself, is dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and sharing the remarkable legacy of the world's most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways. My name is Linda Freyer, co-founder and chair of the Pan Am Museum Foundation, and I am delighted to welcome you to the 67th episode of the Pan Am Podcast. Before introducing our new host, Ken Anderson, I would like to take a moment to recognize and thank the person who made this program possible, Tom Betty. For the past five seasons, Tom served as the creator and host of the Pan Am Podcast. Through his passion for Pan Am history, thoughtful storytelling, and engaging interviews, Tom helped transform this podcast into an award-winning program with listeners in 171 countries around the world. Under his leadership, the podcast became an important part of the museum's mission to preserve and share the stories of Pan Am's people, innovations, and its enduring legacy. On behalf of the Pan Am Museum Foundation, our listeners, guests, sponsors, and the entire Pan Am community, I extend our heartfelt gratitude to Tom for his extraordinary dedication and countless contributions. His work has created a lasting archive of stories that will continue to educate and inspire future generations. But as the saying goes, as one chapter closes, another begins. It is my great pleasure to introduce the new host of the Pan Am Podcast, Ken Anderson. Ken brings with him a lifelong passion for aviation and deep appreciation for the history and legacy of Pan American World Airways. As host, Ken will continue the tradition established by Tom while bringing his own perspective, curiosity, and enthusiasm to the program. We are excited for the future of the podcast and look forward to sharing new stories, new voices, and new discoveries with our listeners around the world. Ken, welcome to the Pan Am Podcast Family and to the Pan Am Museum Foundation. We are thrilled to have you at the helm and we continue our journey celebrating the people, history, and legacy of Pan Am.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Thank you very much, Linda. It's my pleasure to be here, and I'm very happy and humbled to be carrying on the work that Tom has started for the museum. He's done a tremendous job.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Thank you so much. Um, your connection to Pan Am, Ken, though, it didn't begin as many of our backgrounds began with as employees of Pan Am. It began with a family story. So tell us about the China Clipper flight covers in your family's collection and how they sparked your interest in Pan American World Airways.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Well, when I was a little kid, my maternal grandmother got me interested in stamp collecting. And one of the things, and because she collected stamps when she was younger, and one of the things that she showed me was a couple of covers that she had in her possession. One of them was sent to her mother, my great-grandmother, and the other one was sent to her brother by my great uncle who lived in the who lived in Manila. He was the head of what at the time was the in the 1930s was one of the largest American corporations in in Manila, which is really kind of strange. And I still can't figure out how he got there because he came from this ridiculously little town in the middle of Nebraska, which I think the town is there now only in name. I don't think anybody even lives there.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Yeah, that's a pretty far distance to go.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Exactly. But he sent he sent my great-grandmother and my granduncle letters on the first eastbound flight of China Clipper. The date escapes me now, 1935, 1936. Um, and she had those she had those letters uh still in her collection. And then when she passed away, I inherited them. And oh, I guess it was about 26 seven, twenty-eight years ago, I was looking to improve some of the decor in my home office, and the covers were laying on my desk, and I thought, well, that's really interesting. That something different, that might be something to look at. Because I'd always been aware of China Clipper, but I really didn't know much else about the backstory. So I I started looking into it, and that led to me buying uh a print of a couple of B-314s writing at anchor at the Honolulu base in the late 1930s. And then I got in contact with the San Francisco um airport museum, uh, got some information from them, and then I started, then I really started reading about it, read Chosen Instrument and American Saga, and then I started collecting and reading just about everything that I could find printed on Pan American. And the story is absolutely fascinating and tragic at the same time. And I just absolutely love it. I then I started collecting stuff on my own, and then I realized that over the course of the history of the airline, there's way too much to collect. So I started concentrating on basically pre-war Pan American. And that's how I got to be here.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

So it's uh Yes, we found out with the um incredible items that we receive at the museum every day that the amount of memorabilia artifacts that is out there is sometimes overwhelming. But it also shows and it's a testament to the passion that people have for for Pan Am and its history. So many of us who love Pan Am remember the moment when this kind of casual interest became something more. So when did it really become like a true passion for you? Was the particular moment maybe you realized that Pan Am was more than just a historical curiosity?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

I think the thing that really really set my mind on it was reading both the chosen instrument and an American saga. Because unless you do a deep dive like that into it, uh what a lot of people remember at this point is just the big blue ball, and they don't realize uh what it took to get to that point. And uh that story is uh just uh truly amazing. And it is it I think it's such a a great example of American ingenuity and uh somebody with a vision and actually putting that together and making it happen. And it's uh to the scale that Juan Tripp did it with Pan Am, that that's a that's a very rare thing these days. You just don't see that happening in industry anymore. Not at not at that scale, at least.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

It's kind of a moment in time that I don't know that I I doubt could ever be really duplicated. Those Pan Am pioneers who were truly, as you say, visionaries, they saw something nobody else saw, and they they made it happen. They made the impossible happen.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Absolutely, and not just from air travel, but the whole the whole industry itself and how they built it. You know, Pan Am started as a 90-mile trip between Key West and Havana. And by the end of the 1930s, they not not only there were they flying through South complete through all of complete South and Central America, but all the way across the Pacific and and across the Atlantic. And after the war, it just expanded from there, kind of built on basically some of the some of the work that Pan Am did for the war effort, building airports all around the world to support the to support the war logistically. And the construction of aircraft that Pan Am brought it brought to the table, the whole industry is based on the standards that Pan Am created.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

And and I don't know that people also realize or understand that it was more than an airline. There are many subsidiaries, there are many offshoots of the major corporation. And, you know, some of our podcasts address those other elements of Pan Am, including the hotel chain, including some of the other subsidiaries. But um we can talk to talk about that because as we know the history of Pan Am, there's no end to the amount of stories that there are out there about the airline and the corporation, the larger corporation that existed.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Oh, that's true. It wasn't just the airline, it was intercontinental hotels, it was Pan Am business jets, it was the guided missile range. It really is remarkable what what they did.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

So over the years, though, you became an avid collector, and we said we didn't know that you focused, had to start focusing more on kind of, I guess, the Pacific or pre-war collection. Focus on that. Um, but what's about Panam's story, its history, that continues to fascinate you and interest you all these years?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Well, the the more I look at it, the more interesting things that I found. You know, uh the uh the upcoming podcast that we have on the um Tehran evacuation. I was in high school at the time that that happened. I didn't know any of that happened. I had no clue that that happened. And then when we started really looking into it, it it's an incredible story.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

But you've also had a little help in getting to better understand Pan Am history from people who actually lived and experienced it. Two people directly from Pan that worked with Pan Am, two employees, including Captain Tommy Carroll, and of course our legendary Max Gurney, who is Max Gurney, Monaco state sales manager, really were were great helps to you as far as getting to better understand this history firsthand from the people who actually lived it. But what did those friendships teach you about the culture of Pan Am and the people who built its reputation around the world?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well, I was very fortunate to be introduced to Tommy, who happened he happens to be a member of the San Diego Yacht Club with me. I don't remember how it happened, but I was talking to another friend of mine who is a member of the club and mentioned my interest in Pan Am. And he said, Oh, you need to talk to Tommy Carroll. So that led to that introduction. And then getting to meet Tommy was just absolutely fantastic. And he introduced me to Max. He also introduced me to the late Captain John Martin, who actually came up through flying boats. So that that was very interesting. But talking to Tommy, I think he really kind of sums it up the best. And just for a very brief background on Tommy, he graduated from La Jolla High School in 1949, went to a private flight school, and he said he was fortunate enough that all nine of his classmates, when they graduated, were hired by Pan Am in 1955, late 54 or early 55. And I believe he started out flying. I know he flew 377s. I think he flew DC fours and pretty much all the other planes. And he ended up retiring uh in 1986. Uh he retired, he re he left Pan Am in 1986 when the Pacific was sold to United. He went to United along with a lot of the 747s because they needed 747s and they needed the SPs, yeah. And he said it he he didn't want to go, but he said it by 1986 the writing was on the wall, and uh he only had a few years left to fly, so so he left. But the stories that he told and the things that he did, and he did it, I mean he he did it all. He flew through every division, he flew IGS service for a number of years, he flew all around the world, and we were having lunch one day, and I told him, I said, Tommy, I said, that just sounds absolutely amazing. And he sat there and he said, you know, he said, I would do it all again for nothing. And I can't think of anything that speaks more to the culture and what the company meant and what the employees felt about it. To be willing to do that kind of career like that and to do it again for nothing, I think is just amazing.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah, and I think, you know, I was talking to some friends of mine, and we the common thread when talking to my colleagues at Pan Am is that our time with Pan Am was some of the best times of our lives. Um it was a job, but it was more than a job. It was the connections, it was the people and the real Pan Am family that we made. So yeah, we do it all again, even though it ends in heartbreak for many of us. We would do it all over again.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Well, you know, it's funny. I've I've seen a lot of photographs that Tommy has shared, and he has a couple of videos on uh Vimeo that he put together that are really, really good. And one of them it just kind of documents his career with Pan Am. And there is not one photograph of him in that whole video where he doesn't have the biggest grin on his face. It's just amazing.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

That was our experience, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Growing up in La Jolla, he was an avid surfer as a kid. So when he started flying for Pan American, he would always bid on some of the coastal international routes. And if it looked like someplace that had surf, he'd bring his surf card to the airport and throw it in the belly of the plane and take it with him.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

And he I can see Tommy doing that. Yeah, I can see that.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah, he said he got to surf all over the world on Pan Am's dime.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

So one thing that strikes me, Ken, about your story is that your appreciation for Pan Am it comes all from the research and discovery and admiration for what the company accomplished.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

But taking your the hat of someone who didn't work for Pan Am, what do you think today's generation can learn from the airlines legacy?

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Air travel today hardly even resembles what air travel was even back in the even back into the late 60s or early 1970s. Actually, you where I draw the line basically is a deregulation. Right. Deregulation completely changed the industry all around. And you know, that's what led to the to the um ultra-low cost carriers, which also led to just a different form of travel and looking at travel in a different way. And I just don't think a younger generation that's traveling by air today has any clue what it was like back then.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

And we know and we know they don't. I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

It's two completely different worlds. To me, it's very humbling to see what what we used to have and how things have changed to what they are now. Although I watching the industry today, uh, especially with the fall of um Spirit Airlines, I kind of get the feeling that the pendulum may have swung as low as it's gonna get as far as the airline industry is concerned, and things are starting to come back around. The loss of Spirit Airlines, um, the complete reorganization of Southwest Airlines and their operational methods. And when you you look at the different levels of service that are being offered by the main carriers, the legacy carriers, I think things are starting to shift. I don't think it's ever gonna go back. It'll never go back to what it was, at least past the first maybe eight or 10 rows. Um up there, you may still see some some sort of Emirates is a good example. Their service is impeccable, Cathay Pacific airlines like that. But for the big legacy airlines, I think you're gonna see a small amount of flyers that are up in first class, up in front of the curtain, that will see a level of service, not the same level that they had on Pan American, but more resemblant of that. And then the farther back you get in the plane, the more modern I would say the air travel.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Right, right, right. Uh it maybe hopefully that people are provided options, you know, that they can choose which level of service that they want. But it's not totally devoid of a level of service. Um it's doubtful Pan Am's business model could survive and thrive in today's operating environment.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

No, that's true. And you know, the other thing too about before deregulation, the airlines were all basically dictated as to what they could what they could charge for everything. So that everything was based on service, where you could, where they were gonna take you and then how they were gonna get you there. And that's different now. Uh now they can they can charge they can all compete on price. Um, and they also compete on service, but service is the thing that takes the hit to get the cheaper price. So okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

So let's talk now about the future. What tr attracted you to the opportunity to host the Pan Am podcast?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Actually, uh the Pan Am podcast really wasn't um something I was considering. I had had an interest at the Pan Am Museum for a while. I was finishing up my career at as a director at the Maritime Museum here in San Diego, and I contacted the Pan Am Museum to see if there was something that we could do. And you were nice enough to call me back and just happened to mention out of the blue about the podcast. And that sounded like a fantastic opportunity and a great way to get involved. My family owns a couple of nursery garden centers here in San Diego. I've hosted a gardening radio show here in San Diego for off and on for over 20 years. So it's something that I was fairly familiar with, at least being on the air, being recorded, things like that. It sounded like a good fit, and here we are today.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

And here we are today. And yes, I remember that first conversation and saying, Whoa, you have a great voice.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, I believe I also mentioned I have a face for radio. So that's that's right.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

That's funny. And because my actually my father used to say something like that, because my my father was a newsman as well and did a lot of work. That's right in San Diego, right where you are. So, as the listeners know, this podcast has always been about preserving history through personal stories and firsthand, you know, that's one of the things that we always thought was so important is bringing the stories from the person who lived them and experienced them, as opposed as seen through a historical lens, which may not always relive them or restate them in the manner in which we live them and experience them. So, um, as a new host, what can our audience expect from future episodes?

SPEAKER_00 18:33

I have been working with you and the team, and we put together the first one that I mentioned. It was the Pan Am evacuation from Tehran in 1979. That I think is going to be really interesting. I think a lot of people don't realize the role that Pan Am played in getting a lot of our people out of there. I certainly did not. I remember the hostage situation very well, but I didn't know the backstory on it. So I think that's a good one. There's so many anecdotes within the Pan Am story that I think people will find an interest in. And not just from a travel standpoint, but also from you for people that are interested in aviation, you you have all the the different stories about the planes from the people that flew it, the just the characters that came up through Pan American and the th and the things that they did. Captain Bob Ford is a prime example, who unintentionally flew the first round-the-world commercial flight. The stories about the locations, about the acquisitions. One of the acquisitions that always fascinated me was the NYRBA, the New York Rio and Buenos Aires acquisition, and how that happened. The the airport program during World War II. There's just a and then just some of the people that we can highlight too. Harold Gray, who became chief pilot at Pan Am after the tragic loss of Captain Music and the Simone. Yeah, Captain Music and the and his work in the Pacific. Andre Priester, who uh nobody knows about, who was a key figure in the development of not just Pan Am, but the airline industry and the standards that it holds. Umerits, which Ego Luterates, he's another one that people don't realize. I've been working, like I said, I'm director at the Maritime Museum here in San Diego, and I've been working with the museum. Hopefully, sometime in 2027, we'll be able to put together a flying boat exhibit at the Maritime Museum because there's a very good tie there. And a lot of the things that are involved with maritime history translated over to Pan Am. And the flying boats are a prime example. And uh, Juan Tripp wanted Pan Am to be a merchant marine of the air, and that's why they wore the white hats, and that's how you got you got captain and first officer, and yeah, it it's all there. Uh, there's so much to dig into, and so many great stories. One thing that I'm when you talk about first hand experiences, one of my favorite books that I ever read about Pan Am was Voices of My Peers. And it was Gene Dunning's book. And I got I just through through the magic of Facebook and all the other Pan Am connections, I've gotten to be good friends with uh his son Jeff Dunning. And that book is absolutely amazing to sit there and read the stories of all the people, and and Gene's career went from I he started on A314 flying boats during the war, and I think he left Pan Am in 1985 or 86, somewhere around there. So he saw it all. He wasn't a pilot, he was a purser. So he saw the aft cabin crew and the things that they had to deal with. And um it's just amazing, just absolutely amazing. There's so much, so much we we've tom just scratched the surface with um, absolutely, and I'm really looking forward to working working with the museum and putting some putting some more quality projects.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

But you also have a firsthand experience with first flight covers and your interest in collecting as well.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

That first flight cover that I inherited from my grandmother got me interested. And so I started collecting first flight covers, and I have quite a few. I I don't have them all, but I have quite a few. And like I said, I've had to start concentrating more on pre-war pay and am in the in the Pacific. But that's been fascinating coming up with those. I I do actually have first flight cover from it's actually kind of a folding postcard, uh, from the first flight at the first commercial flight of China Clipper to Manila, and it's signed by the crew.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

So wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

I have a very good signatures on it. So and I have a and some of the other it when you start collecting covers, one of the other things that happened in those ear those early airmail covers is people would get the pilots to sign them. Yes. And I have a I have a couple of pieces that were signed by Ed Music. I have, I know there's at least one in there that was signed by Rod Sullivan. Um just some of the some of the big names. It's um it's really it's really been fun.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Well, it is a fascinating story, and we look forward to hearing more about that with you. So finally, as we prepare the to have you take the microphone and guide the next chapter of the Pan Am Podcast, what message would you like to share with our listeners around the world?

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I am just thrilled to be here. I look forward to digging deep more into something that I have just had an absolute love for for at least the past 27, 28 years, and hoping to share it with everybody. And I hope you find it as entertaining and as interesting as I do.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

So thank you for joining us today and for taking on this important role. We're excited about the future of the Pan Am Podcast and uh look forward to the stories and the conversations and discoveries that you'll bring to the Pan Am Podcast program in the uh episodes to come. So, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Ken Anderson as the new host of the Pan Am Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Thank you very much, Linda. It's my pleasure. I am absolutely thrilled to be working with the Pan Am Museum Foundation, and we will be working very hard to bring some very interesting and uh fun content to our listeners.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Terrific. All right, so thank you all for joining us today. Stay tuned for our next episode of the podcast. We'll be coming to you later in the month of July. And uh thank you for joining us again today.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

This program is sponsored by the generous personal support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO and chairman of AMC Theaters. He is also the president of our sister organization, the Pan Am Historical Foundation. This program has been brought to you by the Pan Am Museum Foundation. Located at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, Long Island, the museum is dedicated to preserving stories exactly like this one. For more information about the museum, visit us at the Panamuseum.org. Thank you for listening.