Robert W Prescott: Fly-By-Nighter Now Air Cargo Leader
Originally published in Business | Commercial Aviation, August 1960
Bob Prescott is a natural to lead the world’s largest cargo and contract air carrier the Flying Tiger Line.
After high school in Fort Worth, TX, he joined his father in the trucking business and got his first taste of freight hauling. Then came law school, his Navy wings, and official credit for shooting down six Japanese planes as a flight leader with the Flying Tigers [AVG]. Part of 1942 Bob spent as a TWA copilot, returning later that year to the Far East to fly more than 300 trips over “The Hump” as a China National Aviation Corp [CNAC] captain.
On his stateside return in 1944, the young Texan met and married Helen Verheyden, the mother of his son and two daughters. They honeymooned in Mexico and met two Los Angeles businessmen exploring the possibility of a US-Mexico air freight line. Bob convinced them that trans-US freight line would be better. So the 32-year-old ace and 11 of his China hands joined the businessmen in their three associates including, Samuel B. Mosher in raising $226,000. Thus, in 1945, what was to become FTL was founded as the nation’s first all freight airline, with Prescott president and Mosher board chairman.
At bargain prices, the handsome, hard driving president invested most of the funds in 14 twin-engine war surplus Budd Conestogas. After days of almost begging for business, he finally got a phone call from Ralph Myers, a produce shipper at Bakersfield, California. He wanted two plane loads of grapes flown to Atlanta.
Bob ruffled the papers on his desk finally admitted: “According to our flight charts, Mr. Myers, we have only one plane available tomorrow, but we can schedule it for your shipment.” The other Conestogas were grounded for want of cash for gasoline. But he got the order and consumer resistance was broken.
Soon some 300 ventures like the Tigers were fighting a suicidal rate-cutting war. It wasn’t until 1949 that the Civil Aeronautics Board finally put a floor under rates for certificated carriers. That helped Bob’s fly-by-nights, as the subsidy-supported passenger airlines called the cargo lines, compete with the big boys.
What kind of a man does it take to boost a pioneer company’s annual business from a half million dollars 15 years ago to nearly 35 million today?
Bob can stand any wrong decision so long as it isn’t stupid. If it is, he’s apt to use his keen memory to needle the victim for a long while trying to keep him from repeating his error. The North Hollywoodian has never been known to ask a man what time he got to work, just: “How are you enjoying your vacation?” When he comes across office gossiping, he sometimes breaks in with: “Alright, what’s next?”
Bob summed up his work-producing policy the other day when he was talking down the throat of an executive. The man had decided a presidential request was unwise, hadn’t carried it out, hadn’t told the boss.
“Let’s get this straight,” Bob dug in. “I want you to disagree with me whenever you think I’m wrong. I don’t want ‘yes’ men around here. I’ll never hold you to answer for giving your opinion. But God help you if you decide not to do something, after we’ve decided to do it, and don’t tell me. I give a lot of freedom around here but with it goes a lot of responsibility.”
The FTL president still flies his own Aero Commander, likes to fish and golf, is an excellent storyteller, and can really gag up a party. Throwing one for a close friend’s pregnant wife, he got her to his house on a ruse. There she discovered that all the baby shower guests were the husbands of her girlfriends, outlandishly dressed in women’s clothes.
Bob interviewed the guests with a tape recorder. The playback was almost as riotous as what happened a few minutes later. Police, tipped off by a Prescott cohort, rushed in looking for a meeting of female impersonators!