(Vol. 1, No. 1 - Winter 1996/1997)
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Can this be UPS training?
"Lift up, gravity down, thrust forward, drag back!"
A week before the first visits, UPS staffers gathered with students in the
Williams media center to prepare the way. As teachers encouraged the drowsy
kids to take notes, UPS pilot Jaime Rojo and contingency manager John Uhl
explained why it's important to deliver packages on time and why it's not
always easy to do.
"Weather disrupts our operations more than anything else," Uhl
says as he tries for a joke -- using one of those 8-ball fortune-telling
toys as a weather predictor. "I don't think we're ready for Letterman,"
Uhl laughs as the kids just sit there.
Middle schoolers are a tough audience, but they perk up when Kevin Spenser
begins pulling out airplane parts. He holds up a computer module, about
the size of a Nike shoe box. "How much do you think this costs?"
No one gets close to the $30,000 pricetag. Then he shows them a jet fanblade.
"$7,000 each," he says. "Four engines, 48 blades per engine.
Somebody tell me how much it costs to put all the blades in." The kids
scramble for pencil and paper as teachers offer "bonus bucks"
for the right answer. "$1,344,000," says the first student to
get it right.
A show of hands reveals that most of the students have never flown on an
airplane. Rojo asks for questions. Someone wants to know: "How does
the plane stay in the air?"
"We know that!" teacher Theresa Craycroft reminds the kids, who've
been sitting in one place for a long time. "Let's do our dance!"
The kids all stand up and begin to dance and sing: "Lift up, gravity
down, thrust forward, drag back," over and over. It looks like an aerobics
workout. The UPS folk, a little less tuned in to the need for adolescent
movement, look on in amazement.
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