Interviewed on May 24, 2023
The interview describes the career of Ron Gilmore, who was hired by West Coast Airlines in 1957 and went on, through a series of mergers, to work in operations and sales for Air West, Hughes Airwest, Republic Airlines, and Northwest Airlines until his retirement in 1992, then worked for ValuJet for a year; early life and early aviation experiences; hiring process at West Coast Airlines, training and experiences as a steward, a station agent, a ticket agent, a sales agent, and a district sales manager; routes he flew as a steward in Washington and Idaho on Douglas DC-3s; transferring to the sales department, his transfer to San Francisco as district sales manager, and his experiences in sales and at San Francisco International Airport (SFO); mergers with Air West, Hughes Airwest, Republic, and Northwest; different corporate cultures of each airline; experiences as a station manager with Hughes, Republic, and Northwest; memories of SFO as well as other bases in Spokane, Portland, Eugene, Hartford, and Nashville; experiences working with ValuJet in Nashville; life after retirement from the airlines.
Comments and Suggestions click to expand