Week Three in Review

Senior Project comes to a close! It has truly been an extremely rewarding time and I have learned a lot about myself and the power of accomplishment. All of my three goals were met, and it is a great feeling. While the first two weeks were involved mainly with completing the first goal of calling the flight departments, I got to move into some new territory in the third week. On Monday, I really started to get going with the pro bono calls project. Every day, me and the interns made 200 to 300 calls to different magazines. Everything from obscure newsletters to Time and TV Guide. As of Friday, around 1000 calls have been made, with about 10% responding positively or asking for more information. There are still about 1000 more magazines to call and I have great faith that the other three interns will do a fantastic job and finish the project up well.

Besides this project, the rest of the week was very slow. Many patients realized Memorial Day weekend was approaching and that we wouldn't be able to help them. It is very sad when a patient calls up around a holiday asking for a flight and we aren't able to help them. It is the same when people call for a flight on the weekend or a flight the next day, there is just nobody flying or not enough time to schedule one for the patient. Others call asking for flights that we cant help period, such as patients on life support or people who are sick, but don't have cancer. There are also the humorous calls, such as the lady who asked us to fly her to Tijuana so she could "go to the beach". Everyone got a good laugh out of that. She wasn't even sick, she just wanted a free flight.

Besides an unforseen Dr.'s appointment on Thursday, I pretty much worked the standard six hour days with one eight hour day thrown in to make up hours. Unfortunately, I came up an hour short of 90 hours due to that appointment and I couldn't make it up on Friday because CAN closed at 2:30 for the holiday. Even though I didn't get exaclty 90 office hours in, I was proably doing aviation related "things" for over 20 hours in my free time. An example would be flying an extremely realistic computer flight simulator that I have set up over the years complete with a projector and real aircraft controls instead of a "joystick". Connected to a certified device with a flight instructor present, the software I use can be logged as actual flight time! Many flight schools around the country use this software to get students used to flying on instruments and basic aircraft handling. This definately makes me an aviation nerd, but all the time on the simulator has helped me become very proficient at flying a real aircraft. Besides all the knowledge that I have gained, It will be cheaper when I go for my pilots license next year because I already "know how to fly". There is also a great deal of practicality involved instead of just enjoying the program. Hours in a real plane with a flight instructor are expensive, and I wont need as many as someone with no experience.

Last Day

Yesterday was my last day at Corporate Angel Network. I had a great three weeks, learned alot, and met some wonderful people. Friday was very slow, probably the slowest day all project. Nobody was calling us because of the holiday, so we shut down around 2:30. In the morning, I called a few magazines but we were just getting voicemails so we shut that down. After lunch, me and the other interns helped out on the phone (which weren't ringing) until we closed early. The most frustrating part of the day was it taking two hours and thirty minutes to get home. Normally, it takes 25 minutes to get there! I eventually got sick of bumper to bumper traffic on 95 so I took the Merritt. Once I realized the Merrit was bumper to bumper too, I took the backroads. What a bad driving experience, but a great project!

Second to Last Day!

On Thursday, I did more pro- bono calling. I probably called about 100 magazines and then I worked the spreadsheet for the rest of the afternoon. My communication over the phone has improved by leaps and bounds over the past three weeks. I can directly attribute this to making phone call after phone call each day. Repitition causes confidence and this is definately the case here. At first, I was somewhat hesitant over the phone but now, I am getting compliments on how natural I sound and convincing I am. It is really important to me that others are noticing as well. The feeling is wonderful to finally achieve this goal! I stayed late until 5:00 and the afternoon was very slow. I worked the phones for two hours after I finished up the spreadsheet and then I went home. I was in to work a little late because of an unforseen doctors appointment. I look foward to wrapping things up on Friday.

Reed

Midweek

Yesterday I continued with the pro- bono calls project. Me and the other interns got through about 300 calls in total. Besides that, it was pretty slow. I had some great conversations on the phone with some of the editors in the magazines. Even some magazines that didnt do pro- bono advertising wanted to help us out because the cause is so good. We secured about 20 advertisements and continued on the project today.

Reed

Tuesday

Today was pretty busy in the morning but then it slowed down nicely. I probably got through another 150 magazines on the to- call list. Out of those 150, about 20 wanted our information and said they would look into running the ad. After me and the other interns shot out for lunch, I worked the spreadsheet. Instead of calling, I was the one handling the spreadsheet, assigning people different groups of magazines to call while recording everything down. It got a bit confusing with three people calling different magazines at the same time so I had to stay ahead of the curve. Compartmentalizing information and properly recording it is key here. There is nothing worse than sending an information packet to a prospective magazine that has the name of the advertising director written wrong or the magazine itself misspelled. While errors are hard to eliminate completely, the best that can be done is severely reduce the possibility for them to occur. That is why checking, and rechecking the information written down against another person is a necessity. 

Reed

Last Week

Wow! Here we are in the last week of senior project! Time has really flown by and before long, I will be headed back up to Proctor to graduate. At the office today, I probably made about 30 or 40 calls to different magazines. Out of those 40, four said they would run our ad and around another eight said they would look into it and follow up. This is good news and hopefully the sign- ups keep happening. In the morning, the phones were ringing off the hook but as lunch time rolled around, things got very slow. I took off around two today to play some golf. Senior project has been alot busier than I expected. I knew there would be hours to put in, but I wasn't expecting so little free time. Between going into the city for a day to paint and going up to Syracuse for the weekend, I have had to work a little more to make up the hours so this definitely contributes to the feeling. I don't mind it though, as I love aviation. It's really not too bad sitting in an air conditioned office scheduling flights while hearing the planes a few hundred feet away spool up their engines and take off. You can even smell the jet fuel on a hot day with the windows open. It really adds to the experience.

Reed

Week Two in Review

What a great week! I finished one project and started another, accomplishing goals and making great progress too. The project regarding calling the flight departments to make sure information correct is finished. I still might receive a few calls back this coming week but I am done making them. It was a great sense of accomplishment to be able to contribute to something the organization uses everyday. There is nothing more embarrassing than calling a corporation to see if they have a flight for a patient and their plane is sold or they stopped flying. That has happened from time to time, especially recently. While this is the main reason the project was undertaken, there are little things that have to be checked as well. Sending a thank you note to the wrong executive or an email to the wrong address is also embarrassing and reflects poorly on the organization. It was my job to try and curb these mishaps by calling all the flight departments to make sure the information was correct. This project is a yearly occurrence. At this time next year, another intern will most likely do the exact same thing all over again. In the aviation world, things change very frequently so it is important to verify information annually.

Midweek, I started a new project which may have the most positive impact on Corporate Angel Network to date. We are a well known organization in aviation circles and with a good amount of cancer patients, but we are trying to get the word out universally. This will help us secure more funding and donations, corporations willing to fly for us, and most importantly patients that can use our services. The project basically entails calling almost every magazine in print to see if they will run a pro- bono advertisement for us. As of today, I would estimate that around 400 magazines have been contacted. In most cases, a message was left. In other cases, I spoke directly to the advertising manager for that magazine. Surprisingly the results were very favorable, with around 200 magazines that want more information and a template of the ad. Out of those 200, I would say around 20 or 30 have committed to running the ad for us already. That number will definitely grow as more magazines call us back or accept the template we have sent them. I am working with three other interns on this project so alot of calling is being done in a short amount of time. The other interns are from a local high school on their senior project, so we share many similarities in that regard.

On the aspect of goals, I have made great strides as well. I built up my confidence communicating over the phone the previous week so the new project was a great test. In the prior project, I mainly had to read from a list questioning different pieces of information. This time, there is no script and I have had to deal with many different scenarios such as angry publishers and magazines that "don't believe in our cause" or "can't support anything with business jets" . The politicians can be thanked for that one, as mentioned in last week's write up. There is so much ignorance, hatred, and misunderstanding out there that it is tough to keep it professional on the telephone sometimes. That is the big key to successful business communications though, you have to stay professional and keep a positive tone, even when the other party is not. Although there are times for a bit of anger and questioning, learning where the line lies is the most important aspect of this skill. On another goal note, I have made much progress on a more minor one too. At the start of the project, I promised myself I would become more aware of different types of business aircraft. Although I am familiar with a great deal of them, I am much more comfortable with identifying and being knowledgeable about commercial aircraft. To anyone outside the aviation industry, this would seem to be a very trivial, geeky, and unimportant goal. I agree 100 percent. What is not widely known however is that good aircraft recognition skills can be beneficial in a pilot's job interview as well as helping to contribute to the safety of a flight. When the ground controller asks you to follow a certain type of aircraft to the runway, it helps to be able to identify which one he is talking about! A few runway incursions/ close calls have happened due to a pilot following the wrong plane on the ground and the controller not catching the error. Let me wrap this up by saying that is a completely different topic and the last thing you want to read is another aviation tangent. Goodnight.

Reed