A personal history written and submitted by Jim Anez, Pierre Flight Service Station

In the spring of 1989 I moved from the supervisor’s position at Watertown to the manager’s position at Pierre FSS.

The Pierre flight plan area was approximately the central third of South Dakota. After the Huron AFSS was opened this area shrank greatly.

PEOPLE AND THINGS

Trust me
Most of the specialists at Pierre FSS had been there for quite a while when I got there. They knew their jobs and, in most ways, did them well, so I didn’t have any big issues to deal with. Automation was starting to take place and prior to my arrival, computer monitors had begun to replace teletype and paper.
The facility layout limited the options for placement of the monitors, but I felt that there were some obvious improvements that could be made. I didn’t want to come across as the “new guy changing everything” so, during a facility meeting, I asked for ideas. It seemed to me that anything would be an improvement, and that employee buy-in was more important that a perfect solution.

After a few weeks of getting no suggestions, I proposed that we make the changes I had in mind. The response was lukewarm and I got the idea that specialists weren’t crazy about changes but they didn’t want to argue.

When completed the changes were well accepted. One of the specialists even told me he had thought of the same thing even before I came to the facility. I asked him why he hadn’t suggested the change when I asked for input. He told me that the previous manager had often asked for input and then either ignored it or belittled the suggestion, so the guys just quit participating. They didn’t believe I was serious about wanting their input to make working conditions better.

After that we had a very good working relationship and were able to make some positive changes and improvements.

Congressional inquiry
Not long after I got to PIR I was informed there was an inquiry from one of the state’s Congressmen about my selection as Facility Manager. One of the specialists in the facility had bid on the position and apparently a local pilot thought he should have been selected and complained to the Congressman. This specialist and I always had a really good relationship and, in fact, when I left the facility he became manager.

After I’d been there about a year I was visiting with a local pilot and he told me he’d filed the complaint but that after seeing how things were going he needed to apologize. I let him know that I was in no way affected and he need not worry about it.