High-flying job takes detour

Heart trouble creates turbulence for airline pilot, so he's considering other career options

By AVRUM D. LANK
alank@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Sept. 2, 2006

By June 2005, Russell "Rusty" Young finally had it made.

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After years of perseverance, he was a front-line jet captain for a financially stable airline earning more than $100,000 a year doing something he loved.

Add an adoring wife, healthy daughters and a strong faith in God, and Young was literally flying high, financially and emotionally.

But one day that month in Kansas City, as he was preparing to pilot a Midwest Airlines Boeing 717, Young, then 51, began to wonder if something had gone wrong with his heart. A few medical tests later, his suspicions were confirmed - he had a condition that meant he could no longer pilot a plane, and since June 14, 2005, he has not. The career he had worked at developing since his 20s was in serious jeopardy.

Medical offices have become more familiar to him than cockpits. Since June 2005, he has had several heart operations and is still waiting for clearance to fly again. Facing the real possibility that will never happen, Young, now 52, has begun to consider career options for a grounded pilot. In doing so, he applied to be part of the Journal Sentinel's financial makeover series, which connects readers facing life changes with financial and career counselors.

"I do not wish to change professions, but I may have no choice," Young wrote in his application letter.

Volunteering to help him were Glendale financial planner Paula Hogan, Racine planner Michael P. Haubrich of Financial Service Group Inc., and Jane Schroeder, a partner in the Lindisfarne Group, a career counseling firm in Brookfield. They are working in together to test Haubrich's theory that developing career skills is as important as managing finances when one is facing life change.

In Young, they have found a nearly ideal client.

"Pilots spend a long time making nothing and working long hours and when they make captain, that is really big," Hogan said. Young and wife Heather "spent a lot of years without a high income, and when they got high income, they were careful how they spent it," she said.

Young also had good disability insurance with policies through Midwest and his union, the Air Line Pilots Association.

His Oak Creek home is paid for, and, thanks to a small inheritance and frugal habits, he has money in the bank. In fact, he is a millionaire, although much of the money is tied up in his house and retirement accounts. As a result, financial stress should be minimal as he readjusts, according to Hogan's projections. The couple can even keep tithing to their church.

That is good news to Heather, 51. A lawyer when they married, she has no desire to go back to the business world, preferring instead to continue the home school education of the couple's daughters, Hayley, 13, and Anna, 12.

"Their current lifestyle means a lot to them," Hogan said. "The solution isn't to make her miserable too."

In an effort to make sure that did not happen, Young briefly considered taking a factory job, but backed off when he learned it would be third shift. Hogan and Schroeder endorsed that decision, as the work would have made it harder for Young to put his energy into retraining.

Lean, easy-going, exercised for years

To look at him, Young would not seem a candidate for heart disease. At almost 5 foot 11 inches and weighing 145 pounds, he has an easy-going manner and has exercised regularly for decades.

He left the University of Georgia in his junior year to join a sky-diving operation in Ohio, and eventually ended up owning his own parachute company near Kansas City. In addition to meeting Heather there when she came in for lessons, it also taught him the joy of flying. Eventually, he sold the business and started a full-time career as a pilot. At first he flew checks overnight for banks in small, propeller driven planes.

But "all pilots want to grow up and fly jets," he said. That meant working for a large airline, and he began a diligent journey toward that goal.

As a young man with neither a college degree nor military experience, the odds seemed long against him, but he kept at it.

What followed was a career sprinkled with numerous layoffs while flying for airlines that went bankrupt or were purchased by larger rivals. During one layoff he completed his college degree. In 1994 he landed a job at Midwest and moved his family to Oak Creek.

At Midwest, Young slowly moved up the seniority list, but by 2001 was finally sitting the captain's seat of one of the company's largest jets. On Sept. 11, he was waiting to take off from LaGuardia Airport in New York for a run to Kansas City when the twin towers were hit.

Hard times followed for the airlines, and for Young. As the airline cut back, his seniority counted for less, and he had to wait until 2005 to get back to front-line status.

And then his heart trouble hit.

At first, dealing with the medical problems, rehabilitation and paperwork with Midwest, the Federal Aviation Administration and union occupied his time and energy. "There was always something going on around the house, and doing stuff around church and cardiac rehab to go to," he said.

What if he can't fly?

But as September rolled around and Heather and the girls resumed school, he really began to wonder "what can I do with my time and if I can't fly?"

Young took classes in computer programming, thinking that might be a good second career, but he still hoped to get back in the air. His heart condition has been treated, but not to the satisfaction of the FAA. After continuing disappointments in trying to get his license back, however, he began to adjust to a different future.

"He has approached this whole process as a problem that needs to be solved," Schroeder said. "He is very disciplined and has a high level of emotional self-awareness. He has been quite systematic and practical."

According to the tests Schroeder ran, Young was right to think about getting into information technology. Financial planning is another possible choice, she said.

Young has enrolled in courses on both.

As to his financial situation, there are some small changes he could make in specific investments and accounts as he trains for a new career, "but he should not be dissipating his energy on the small stuff," Hogan said.

Young's situation and the way he is handling it teach several wider lessons, she said. One is living below one's means even in good times, and another is being aware of employee benefits, especially when it comes to disability insurance.

Also, watching the interactions between Rusty and Heather has been highly gratifying, Hogan said. They are facing the challenges together and "they communicate with each other," she said.

As a result of that and "because they have handled their money so wisely, they can live their values" even as the readjustment takes place, she said.