"Charting a Course for Leadership and Innovation" with Deborah Hersman

In our latest episode, we sit down with Deborah Hersman, an emblem of dedication to transportation safety and a vanguard for gender equality in leadership roles. Her journey is nothing short of inspiring, spanning from the corridors of Congress to chairing the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to the innovative realm of self-driving cars at Waymo as Chief Safety Officer.

Exploring the relationship between automation, technology, and human interaction, especially as it pertains to transportation, Hersman's expertise provides a fascinating look into how our society has gradually embraced automation—from the simplicity of elevators to the complexities of driverless vehicles. She delves into the intricacies of establishing trust in automated technologies and the potential for driverless cars to revolutionize safety on our roads. Our episode concludes with a thought-provoking discussion on leadership and resilience, prompted by Hersman's experiences with unforeseen tragedies such as the recent Baltimore bridge accident.

Hersman offers a masterclass in leadership, safety, and innovation. Her reflections not only highlight the transformative power of technology but also emphasize the human elements of mentorship, curiosity, and the pursuit of equity that are integral to progress in any field.
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Resources:
Find Deb on LinkedIn
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Please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com to learn more about Mo Fathelbab and International Facilitators Organization (IFO), a leading provider of facilitators and related group facilitation services, providing training, certification, marketing services, education, and community for peer group facilitators at all stages of their career.

Transcript

Mo 0:08

Welcome to the Heart of Business podcast sponsored by International Facilitators Organization. I'm your host, mo Fatalbab, and today our guest is Deb Hersman. She's the former chair of the NTSB and her storied career goes on before and after, so it's really a pleasure to have you with us, deb. How are you today?

Debbie 0:28

I'm doing great, Mo. It's nice to be with you.

Mo 0:31

Thank you, thank you. So I'm really fascinated by your career, especially with your stint at the NTSB, as it relates to the current catastrophe that we're having right now. But let's hold off on that conversation for a moment, and I want to start with just the early days. Where did you grow up? Tell us a little bit more.

Debbie 0:54

So I am the daughter of an Air Force officer, so I'm an Air Force brat. And I actually grew up all over the world Before I was 18, I lived in 13 different places and five different countries, so I grew up all over.

Mo 1:12

Wow, wow. And what did your dad fly?

Debbie 1:16

So he was a test pilot and a fighter pilot. He flew multiple aircraft over the course of his career, but at the bases where we were stationed when I was growing up he flew F-4s, a-10s and F-16s.

Mo 1:30

Okay, okay, wonderful. So Sally, my better half, her father was Army Air Corps and he flew P-47s and P-52s, I believe, so he must be half a generation ahead of your dad anyway.

Debbie 1:45

Right, yeah, yeah, but yeah, my dad, he spent the early part of his year flying, his years in the air force flying, served two tours in Vietnam and you know it was. It was a very, a very interesting and very different upbringing than most people get and I actually am really grateful at the time when you move all the time I was in four different high schools, you know it's you don't. You don't realize the good things, you don't realize how lucky you are and how much you get to experience the world, how much you get to see, how much you get to learn about yourself, how close you get to your nuclear family because of those moves. But there were a lot of good things that came out of it and I'm actually pretty grateful for it.

Mo 2:35

Yeah, yeah, I could imagine. It sounds like an adventure to me, you know, having moved here myself to the US when I was 11. I know that, you know it was a little bit of a challenge, but overall, no way, I don't look back what an incredible opportunity. So did you speak many languages growing up?

Debbie 2:55

You know, I would say at the time, wherever I was, I could speak a little bit of those languages. Of those languages we lived in Jordan and so of course the people that we interacted with you know they taught us how to speak Arabic, and I could never read Arabic though I was pretty young. We lived in Germany. I took German in school. We lived in Spain. I took Spanish in school, but that one actually stuck with me. I ended up minoring in Spanish in college. So I did keep that language up. But I will say I can only say the basic things in German and Arabic, but I can greet people and say hello, but not much beyond that. You know, I probably I can greet people and say hello, but not not much beyond that.

Mo 3:44

Well, I could relate. You know, I left Egypt in 1978. And at this private school we had everything you know, every subject you could think of, but the two that I struggled with were Arabic and religion, and I failed them in the midterms. I hate to admit it, and but you know what? It all works out. It all works out, but Arabic is tough, so I got that. So when did you first fly? You're a pilot, right?

Debbie 4:11

So I am. I am not a pilot, but I actually soloed in a Piper Tomahawk before I got my driver's license and so I actually started taking flying lessons. At a very, a very young age. I thought I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. When I was growing up I changed my mind.

Debbie 4:30

I did not elect to go in that direction full circle after a number of years and came back into the aviation space, and one of the things that I realized at that point in time that you really have to keep up with it with flying. You have to do it on a regular basis, you need to stay current, you need to make sure you, you know, are instrument rated, you're, you know you're doing all the things to stay safe. Because when I read accident report after accident report, I realized it was people who are flying part time, that, and especially very successful people, people who were professionals and had very successful careers in other spaces doctors, dentists, lawyers but people who weren't necessarily flying full time. That just made me realize how the safest thing I could do was to not fly.

Mo 5:32

So, yeah.

Debbie 5:34

So you know, I did end up getting my commercial driver's license, cdl endorsements, school bus endorsements, air brakes.

Debbie 5:44

I took training to drive a motorcycle, to ride a motorcycle, and so I had a motorcycle endorsement too, and so there were a lot of things that I did to maybe get the experience and understand what it was like and what it would take to do those jobs and operate that equipment hazmat training, things like that but, um, in many situations it was.

Debbie 6:09

It was recognizing how hard it was to do those jobs and how grateful I was for the people who drove my kids to school on a school bus every day, um, and that they were paying attention to safety and doing the right things. But, um, you know it, it also it also made me a little bit nervous to be in those environments and doing those, doing those roles and knowing all the things that potentially could go wrong. You just have to be vigilant all the time and there's so many people every day who do jobs, who we count on them to keep us safe, and I think most of the time bad things don't happen and we don't really say thank you to people like thanks, everything went great, there were no problems.

Debbie 6:51

But people pay a lot of attention when things don't go well and they recognize you know kind of the risks when that happens, but they don't realize all the times that things go well and things turn out well.

Mo 7:05

We take it for granted.

Debbie 7:07

Yeah, we really do.

Mo 7:08

We really do so back to gosh, you know. You remind me, I had a YPO member and a client from Brazil and he used to say the best money transfer instrument invented by man is the helicopter, or a boat, maybe for instrument invented by man is the helicopter or a boat?

Mo 7:28

maybe right. Or a boat, maybe right, exactly, exactly. So what attracted you to safety in the first place? Obviously, that's a big part of your focus, and my math says at least 12 years of your career focused on safety. What was it that caused you to get attracted to that in the first place?

Debbie 7:50

Yeah. So I would actually say I've been very, very lucky.

Debbie 7:54

I consider myself kind of like a lifelong learner and I'm not joking, I truly mean like I've been to school every day of my life, even when I got out of school. But my first 12 years I worked on the Hill and worked on legislation and really everything from budget to abortion to guns to. You know, all of the issues worked, all of the issues. But I ended up settling in to transportation at some point. My boss was a senior member of the Transportation Committee and so over time I started working on that portfolio and became more of an expert in that space, particularly in railroad, railroads. And so for my first seven years I worked on the House side and so I worked a lot on transportation and railroads. And then I went over to the Senate side and I specialized in transportation, especially surface transportation, and worked for the Senate Commerce Committee. And so it was really actually during that time in the House there was a collision, and it was right here in this area. During that time in the house there was a collision, and it was right here in this area. It was between a Mark train and an Amtrak train and it was in Silver Spring. There was a collision between those two trains and my boss at the time was from West Virginia and Harper's Ferry was in his district and there were a number of Job Corps students that were on that train, coming that MARC train, coming from West Virginia, and they were returning home to the city for the weekend and majority of the train was empty. So that was fortunate. But there was a collision. The vehicles were damaged, but all the cars were damaged that were involved in the direct hit of the collision.

Debbie 9:47

And then there was a fire. The Amtrak locomotive caught on fire and then it caught the MARC train on fire. The doors were crushed and so they tried to get out another set of doors. But there was an emergency exit that was fairly complicated. You had to open up a panel. You had to stick kind of the equivalent of two quarters in at the same time and turn these screws to release the emergency door handle.

Debbie 10:18

Well, in a situation where a train is literally on fire, it was almost impossible for these individuals, who were in a panic state, to try to figure out how to release this emergency door handle, and they could not figure it out. The emergency responders had arrived and they were on the outside trying to figure out how to get in. There were emergency windows, but they weren't well marked and it wasn't clear to them how to get out. And so, unfortunately, a number of lives were lost that day and these Job Corps students survived the train crash. They survived the impact, but the fire was what killed them.

Debbie 10:58

And so after that, the NTSB came in. They briefed us, they told us what had happened, they explained the situation about how emergency responders couldn't get in and people couldn't get out, and so we really recognized emergency access and egress were a tremendous risk situation, and even though they had the ability to get out, they couldn't actually use those exits. And so we drafted legislation. All trains are required to have well-marked, conspicuous exits. 50% of the windows on passenger trains now have to be emergency egress windows. There are only one on each side in that old train, and the doors have to be easy to open and get out. And so you know it was that it was very formative. You know, early in my career I was like, wow, you know, and I got into public service because I want to help people and I want to make the world a better place.

Debbie 11:56

You know, like everybody else and, and you know, after going through that and I obviously I'm kind of condensing something that took years into, you know, a couple of minutes but getting through that process and realizing like you actually can make change, you can really, you can impact things, you can make change, and so that was just a kind of one example.

Debbie 12:19

But throughout the course of the time that I worked on the Hill, I had the opportunity to interact frequently with the NTSB working in the transportation space and very often would incorporate the recommendations that they made into legislation. And so whether it was, you know, aviation incidents, maritime incidents, surface transportation incidents, there was a lot of work that was done and it wasn't just at the NTSB, the industry and labor, the Department of Transportation, you know there are a lot of people involved to kind of make things better. But I think that certainly piqued my interest in transportation safety and for someone who decided they wanted to get away from aviation, you know, because I didn't necessarily want to be in my dad's shadow, it was kind of a full circle, you know, 12 years later to end up going to the NTSB and being very focused on aviation, and very often my dad was one of the first calls that I made when I was trying to understand something very complex and I needed to try to just understand the basics of aerodynamics and aviation and how things worked.

Navigating Gender Dynamics in Government

Mo 13:30

Wow, Wow, Amazing. So onto the NTSB were you. You must've been one of the youngest people to head it up and one of the first females. I don't know the stats. Can you maybe tell us?

Debbie 13:44

Sure. So I was 33 when I was nominated and 34 when I was confirmed, and so I was one of the youngest people. Your listeners might be interested to know that there was another woman who was about my same age and that was actually Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was a senator from Texas for many, many years, and she served a few decades prior, and so she was one of the first women on the board. But yes, generally you're in the minority as a female on the board. It's transportation is a very male dominated space, and so a lot of the experts that come out of that space are men, and so I was so fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of really great colleagues, men who really lifted me up and supported me and, you know, helped me through through almost all of my career and so, but yes, it was.

Debbie 14:46

I was one of the youngest and one of the few women.

Mo 14:49

So you know listen, I love hearing what you just said that I felt so supported by these men, because too often I hear an opposite story of oh my God, I was the first woman and they didn't make it easy for me, and so it sounds like they made it quite easy for you. Is that? Am I hearing that right?

Debbie 15:09

Well, I would say I'm a glass half full person, mo. So I definitely focus, I would definitely focus on the positives. But you know, I will say, throughout my career, you know, I my, my, my mentors, my primary mentors and and the people who spoke for me and advocated for me my bosses were men and so I worked for Congressman Bob Wise on the House side for seven years. He eventually became governor of West Virginia. I worked for Senator Hollings on the Senate side. He's passed away now, but he was just an incredible legislator. My subcommittee chair was Senator Breaux. John Breaux from Louisiana. Senator Rockefeller from West Virginia was also very supportive. I can't tell you how many of these individuals really went to bat for me and they did. And that is why I was able to be one of the youngest NTSB board members is because I had people in my camp who were very supportive, you know. But when I got to the NTSB, my colleagues, many of my colleagues, were men. I did serve with two women over the course of 10 years, but the majority of my colleagues were men and the majority of the leaders at the agency and the investigators were men.

Debbie 16:25

I'm really pleased to say now that there is a woman who is chair of the NTSB, jennifer Homendy. The managing director, the leader of the civilian staff at the NTSB, is a woman, dana Schultz. She's a former head of the aviation safety office. They also recently just had a general female general counsel a woman general counsel. So, you know, I think there are lots and lots of opportunities for women. I think government is a great equalizer. You know, I'm older now, I'm 30 years. You know past, when I started in the government. But I did feel when I started, as long as you worked hard and you, you know you did it, you did a good job People were always willing to give you more work. So, you know, in the government I think there is a tremendous opportunity to advance. You know, if you, if you put forward the effort.

Mo 17:28

It's interesting because I was about to ask you know, people supported you clearly for some reason right. In other words, they believed in you. But for those out there who maybe take the opposite view, where maybe they're not feeling so supported and they're feeling like they're othered and instead of feeling like they belong, what might you say to them in terms of your experience, about how you attracted that support?

Navigating Career Curiosity and Opportunities

Debbie 17:58

You know I would say I certainly understand if people don't feel supported. There have always been situations where that's been the case and certainly in my career I experienced, you know, times like that. You know sometimes you're not judged fairly. There are things that happen that you either get credit for or don't get credit for, whatever the situation was. Um, you know, when people question how you got into your role or your, your position, whether you earned it and whether you deserved it, and so I think you know some of that is. Everybody experiences some of that at some point. And I think another piece of it and especially when you start to advance through your career imposter syndrome and we talk about this a lot now, but we didn't talk about this a lot- 30 years ago, 20 or 25, 30 years ago, and you know that's a very real thing and I will tell you.

Debbie 19:02

You know, for the folks who wonder, you know that's a very real thing and I will tell you, you know, for the folks who wonder, you know, like what? What was my secret sauce? I don't think I had any secret sauce, but I, I am super curious and so I always was interested in the things that I did. And so I will say if you can work on the thing, on things that make it feel like it's not work, you are going to love your job. And when you love your job, everyone knows it and you know I will tell you. I drove across the bridge into DC for 21 years, every day for 21 years, and I still had a great feeling when I drove across that bridge and I saw those memorials. I still felt like, oh my gosh, how lucky am I. And I would drive up to work in the House or the Senate or at the NTSB and I would think I am the luckiest person in the world. How did I get this job? And then I left DC and I went to go do other jobs and.

Debbie 19:59

I felt the same way, and so I think, if you can find something that you're really interested in and for me, I'm a very curious person, I love asking questions, I love trying to get to the bottom of things, I love hearing all sides to the story, I just really enjoy that and I think I'm also willing to take risks.

Debbie 20:22

I don't take risks that are not smart, but I am willing to take risks, I am willing to put myself out there and I will tell you, every time I put myself out there, it hasn't worked. Sometimes I haven't been successful, and that is incredibly painful, but the times that I have put myself out there and it's been successful, I've landed things that I'm just like, absolutely shocked. You know, like, how did I get to be, you know, a Senate staffer? How did I get to be an NTSB board member? How did I get to be the NTSB chair? And, yes, I worked really hard. But I also feel like there's a lot of other people in this world who work really hard and they're smarter than I am and they didn't get those things, and so I know that there is a fair amount of luck and timing involved in the things that come your way, but you got to be ready to say, yes, I'm going to try this, yes, I'm going to go for it.

Mo 21:18

You know, I'm struck also not just by your optimism and the glass half full and all the examples you've shared, but your humility as well. You know, it's one of those things where, yeah, we're going to work hard, we're going to do our best, but it could Google or was it Waymo, then acquired by Google? Tell us more about that. Nonprofits in the US and it's focused on safety in workplaces, in homes and communities and on the road, and so that's actually where I joined YPO.

Debbie 22:10

I went to Chicago and I was the CEO of the National Safety Council for five years and it was a great path to exit the government because as a public servant and I think public service is a very noble calling I think sometimes it's very hard to transition out of that. You leave and you kind of are the person with the white hat on or you think you're the person with the white hat on and then you go do something else. And it was a great role. I was able to go to a not-for-profit but we had 15,000 member companies and so most of our members were small businesses. But we also had large companies who were our members as well.

Debbie 22:53

My board was US Steel, exxonmobil, dupont and so big companies, and so that was a really great transition for me to be able to keep one foot in the safety space, be in a not for profit and be interacting with all of members. But again, I was so blessed. I had the most amazing board chairs and I had wonderful board members, many of them I am still in touch with on a regular basis. They were just absolutely supportive and it was a wonderful experience. I loved leading the National Safety Council, and then I got to experience YPO. I I loved, uh, leading the national safety council, um, and then I got to experience YPO.

Debbie 23:47

I got to experience other things that people outside of government would normally do, and so that's a really interesting thing too, because government is a whole different thing, and when you step outside of government there are different opportunities, and it was actually two of my board members who were in YPO that told me I should join.

Debbie 24:04

But you know, that was a great experience.

Debbie 24:07

I was there for five years and then I got a call Google self-driving car project, but then they spun it out into its own organization, its own company, and that's called Waymo.

Debbie 24:28

And so I went out to Waymo and I was their first chief safety officer, and so I felt like a really kind of perfect transition to be able to then go into the tech startup space, which was totally new to me too, just like going to Chicago and working at a not-for-profit. And so I think, oh, you can see what I mean when I say I got to be in school like my whole life. I got to do new things, and there were always people around me who were smarter, more knowledgeable about that thing than I was having to be responsible for P&L at the National Safety Council, and it was an unusual not-for-profit. Only about 10% of their revenue came from fundraising. The rest came from their businesses, their products and services, and so it was a really great experience for me, but going out to Waymo and working at Google. I mean I felt like I was sitting around the table with the United Nations of smart people.

Debbie 25:26

I mean the people who were working on the self-driving project were some of the smartest engineers you know in the world, and it was. It was another just absolutely fantastic experience, a fantastic learning experience. Just absolutely fantastic experience, a fantastic learning experience, and I got to kind of see the pinnacle of all the things that I'd worked on to say we have and today we still have 44,000 people who are killed on our roads every year. We have over 10,000 people that are killed in drunk driving crashes. Those absolutely don't need to happen.

Debbie 26:01

One of the ways that that can potentially be countered is technology not necessarily self-driving cars, but self-driving cars could be an answer to some of those challenges, because it's human beings who are making bad decisions and who are making errors when they're behind the wheel, and a self-driving car will make errors, but it won't make the same errors that human beings do, and so, um. So that was a really interesting experience to be on that side of it and be working on something new and, um, kind of groundbreaking. You know, cases of first impression, you know, occurred regularly in that space, whether it was law or engineering or public policy, and so it was truly a really interesting experience.

Mo 26:50

What a diverse background. So let's talk about self-driving cars for a minute, because I know a lot of people that say there's no way in. You know what, am I going to get behind the passenger seat of a self, a self driving car? I think I just heard you say that, maybe from one of the top safety expert in the country that maybe, just maybe, it even feels safer for you to be in a self driving car than with the driver. Is that is?

Automation and Human Interaction in Vehicles

Debbie 27:16

that what I'm hearing. Yeah, so you know, I'll just tell you about my experience and I think everybody has to kind of come to their own you, their own sense of what they feel comfortable with. But let's just face it, there's a lot of automation now and we experience a lot in our life. We all understand that when you're flying in, a lot of that is highly automated. The pilots are relying on the tech. But even when you're taking a mover at the air, sometimes there's no driver in it.

Mo 27:52

We're taking one of those little trains and all the terminal and that's the vehicle.

Debbie 27:58

Obviously, it operates on track. It's different, but there's a lot of automation in the world and a lot of it people didn't accept in the beginning, whether it was elevators or, you know, escalators or things like that but now we just accept it, don't even question it. We're like this is, this is great, this is safe. I'm so glad to have this. I don't want to walk up the stairs. I'm going to take the elevator but say in our cars, we already have many of your listeners, we already have the stair steps to automated vehicle.

Debbie 28:32

They already have beginnings of that. We've been using cruise control for decades. People use adaptive cruise control now, where it kind of controls your following distance from the car in front of you. There are blind spot detectors, blind spot monitors, rear view cameras, like there's so much technology in our car now, and many of you have apps that track hard brake for your insurance companies or cell phone boosts or things like that. So there's a lot of technology already in our cars, and if you think about all the work that the automotive industry is doing, they're learning to drive, and so they're learning the hard braking, they're learning about following distances. They're learning about all of those things.

Debbie 29:20

Now you have another step in a company like Tesla, where there's a higher level of automation, but Tesla, they're not self-driving. Tesla's are driver assistants, and so that's where I think there comes a lot of confusion, because people might think that Tesla's are self-driving cars because they call it autopilot and things like that. They are not self-driving. They're driver-assist, and so the driver should be engaged in the driving task. But have you ever been in a Tesla or you drive a Tesla, mo?

Mo 29:53

I've driven a Tesla, but only as a rental car. I don't own one because we don't have a place to plug in.

Debbie 29:58

Yeah, so there are definitely additional levels of automation, but part of the challenge in that is it lulls drivers into thinking that the car is driving for them and that they don't need to be driving. And so Google, actually, when they first started their self-driving project, they went down that path as well and they thought, well, when we get into trickier situations, we'll just have the human driver take over, and then we'll have the car do it when it's the easy part for the automated vehicle to do, and then we'll just alert the driver that they need to take over if there's a construction zone or if there's something that happens. That's unusual, and what they did is they actually sent these self-driving cars home with their employees to allow them to test them, and they were camera'd up, instrumented up, they were monitoring, and then they started seeing some really bad behavior from the human drivers. They were putting on makeup, they were talking on the phone, they were reading books, they were checking their messages and even some of them were falling asleep because the car was doing such a good job of driving that they were really bored and they didn't need to pay attention.

Debbie 31:06

And I think it was that experience that kind of changed the direction that Waymo ended up going. When it was Google self-driving car, they said we do not want to share the driving task with the driver, because drivers are really bad at paying attention when the task is boring. When the task is boring, they're going to do something else, and so we need to make sure we have a car that's fully automated, that drives in all conditions, and we don't expect the human being to take over, so we want the human in the backseat.

Trust in Automated Vehicles and Career

Debbie 31:36

We want them to trust the car is driving and, from my experience in NTSB, the interface between the driver and the automation can often be the tricky part. And so when you looked at aviation accidents, it was when pilots had mode confusion, when they didn't know what the plane was doing, when they didn't know if the plane was holding altitude or if it was controlling the engine's thrust, or that's where problems came, because the pilots thought, oh, the aircraft is taking care of this, and the aircraft was like no, I'm not, I'm not doing this, you're doing that. And when there's confusion, that's that's when people have problems and so those handoffs. You know, you might have a situation where autopilots flying and the angle of attack starts to get too steep and it says I can't do this anymore. And then it clicks off and it tells the pilot, take control. Well, at that point the plane is almost in a stall. And so having the pilot take over in an emergency, when they haven't been flying the plane for the last five to 10 minutes, they don't know what's happening, they don't really have the feel of what's going on, they don't realize that they've gotten themselves into trouble. I will just tell you the intersection between human operation and automation is tricky. And so I think I think the path that Google decided to go down with fully automating and saying no driver, we're going to do the, we're going to leave the driving to us. If the car can drive in this space and it's safe to drive, it's going to do everything, and so that keeps you from the sleeping drivers and all the other things that might happen. And so when I went out to California, I actually lived in Waymost territory.

Debbie 33:13

I lived inside the zone where we served our employees with our test vehicles, and I did that so I could ride the cars every day. I could ride to work, I could see what the new software was doing, I could experience it. And then my family rode in those cars too. We went to the store, we went out to eat and I felt very comfortable putting my kids in the car and in fact, those cars rode beside my kids.

Debbie 33:41

And in California, in the place where we live, there were no school buses. Kids walked to school or they rode their bikes, and so all of the kids I have three boys all of the kids were riding bikes to work or riding bikes to school, and they had these automated vehicles on the roads next to them. And I will tell you, I trusted the Waymos more than I trusted the human drivers who were distracted by their phones, who were eating who, who knows what else. Um, and so I paid. I paid very close attention to that while I was out there. And again, this is not to say that anything's perfect, nothing perfect. There's always failures. But, um, my parents, who were very skeptical, my husband's parents, the grandparents, who were very skeptical, they came out for visits and after one ride in the car, they said when can we get this?

Mo 34:35

when will this come?

Debbie 34:36

to us, and so I think it's really important for people who have not experienced driving cars whether it's Waymo or whether it's another type of vehicle to experience it. There are places where Waymo has service where they don't have a driver in the vehicle. They started doing it in Arizona, in the Phoenix area. They've been doing that for a number of years. Since Waymo, they've opened up service in California and now they've opened up service in Austin, and so I think it's really worth to experience it and see how comfortably you feel.

Mo 35:14

It's amazing how quickly people pull their phones out because they trust the information out and because they trust, they trust the nation, wow, wow, well, I, I can't wait to try it and, uh, that's an endorsement coming from you and trusting it to to shepherd your kids to school, so to speak, that's really, uh, really, quite something. So, thinking back about this wonderful career of yours, what parts of it would you say were most exhilarating? What parts were most challenging?

Debbie 35:48

Yeah, I loved. I loved every part of it. I loved every opportunity that I had. Um, you know, I think some of them probably sound sexier to your listeners because they might be something that they're interested in or something that they've seen on TV. But, quite honestly, um, I loved. I love my first job and I love my first boss, and if he hadn't gone back and run for governor of West Virginia, I probably would still be working for him.

Debbie 36:16

Um, you know, I think I realized, you know, over time that when I started repeating things, when I started doing something where I was like you know what I feel, like I've done this before and I think we all get that right in our career. We're kind of we're like I think I've done this before and I think we all get that right in our career. We're kind of we're like I think I've done this before and I'm pretty sure I know how it's going to turn out and this interaction with this person. I've had this before and I know how they're going to behave and you know it's. I think there are times where we get really comfortable and we're we're happy and we're enjoying things, and we do stay too long, and so I I found that I moved, on average every five years, um, in my career, into a different role and that kept me, kept me sharp, because I had to work really hard that first year or two when I came into a new role to to make sure that I understood things, um, but every job was exhilarating, Every job was interesting, every job.

Honorary PhDs and Leadership Insights

Debbie 37:15

I worked with great people. Some of those people, um, I'm still in touch with and are still my friends. There are two people that worked for me, um, both of them worked for me in two different places and, uh, last year they asked me to officiate their wedding. And you know, I think for us as leaders, you can always be replaced. As a leader, there are always people who can come and do your job and some of them will do it better than you did it. And you know, we always hope that we're the best boss that anyone ever had, but, um, but you know we're. We can all be very good bosses and we can all be very good people, but I think staying connected to some of the people who were important to me over the course of my career, that's probably meant more than anything. Um, you know all the awards or the recognitions, that you get honorary PhDs. I mean what am.

Debbie 38:16

I going to do with those things you?

Mo 38:18

know yes yes. So how many honorary PhDs do you have, and from where?

Debbie 38:34

have two. One is from the University of Kentucky, which is incredibly meaningful. I'm also a Kentucky colonel, the state of Kentucky. My husband's family is from Kentucky. His mom and dad both went to the University of Kentucky and, although they did not do well in the NCAA this past week, my husband's a big Kentucky Wildcat fan and in 2006, they had a plane crash. A commercial aircraft took off from a runway that was only big enough for a general aviation aircraft, so should have been a 7,000 foot runway. They took off on a 3,500 foot runway. 49 of the 50 people on the plane were killed and I ended up being the member on scene for that accident and that investigation ended up creating very deep bonds with the community in Kentucky.

Debbie 39:26

They asked me to come back for the one year anniversary, and then I was in Chicago at the National Safety Council and they asked me to come back for the one year anniversary and then I was in Chicago at the National Safety Council and they asked me to come back for the 10 year dedication of a memorial, and so one of my honoring PhDs is from the University of Kentucky and I think they probably gave that to me a year or two after that crash. That's very meaningful. The other one is from the University of Delft in the Netherlands and it's an aviation, and so that one came. There were multiple investigations, that you work through international parties, and so some of the things that I did was work at ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, to establish minimum standards and requirements or treatment of family members after an aviation incident, and so I had a number of international counterparts and worked with the Dutch Safety Board as well, and so that came out of that relationship.

Mo 40:32

Well, that is impressive. And were those more meaningful for you? This is a trick question. There's no good answer. Were those more meaningful for you? Or officiating your friend's weddings?

Debbie 40:43

You know what? They were all incredibly meaningful. My stepmom actually was born in the Netherlands and so when I received the honorary doctorate she and my dad came with me and were able to see me receive that. And so you know I would say, just like every chapter of my life, you know there's a time and a place for everything you know and I never want to look back on things and like kind of Glory Days song by Bruce Springsteen. You know you don't want to look backwards, I always want to be looking forward, but I'm hoping the most meaningful and the best thing is yet to come.

Mo 41:19

Oh, I love that, but we can't close there because it's a good place to close. So I want to get your take on this Baltimore Bridge and you know, I'm sure you have thought about it time and time again since the horrible accident and you must have some thoughts that may be interesting to our listeners, that are maybe different than all the stuff we hear on the news.

Debbie 41:44

Yeah, so you know you're going to hear things on the news. You'll hear more things as information comes out. You'll hear more things as information comes out. You'll learn more. I think what I'm mostly struck with on this one is how lucky we are and you know, and you just don't know.

Debbie 42:01

I mean, we saw this, I saw this many, many times and you know, and you all, listeners, pay attention, you'll see it. You'll see it going forward. There are circumstances where you think how in the world did something like that happen? Only six people were killed. Now, for those six people who were lost, they were someone's world and so you can't say only six people, because those six people, you know they cannot be replaced, they will never be replaced for people. But it could have been so much worse. I mean we could have lost hundreds of people. Think about if it had been rush hour in Baltimore and that bridge had been fully loaded. Those temperatures are too cold. You don't have enough search and rescue vehicles to be able to save people. The fact that they were able to stop the traffic, even in the middle of the night, it could have been so much worse. There could have been a bus full of people going to Atlantic City.

Debbie 43:03

You know, I mean it's just amazing to me sometimes when you watch something that happens and you think why did some people lose their lives and why didn't more people lose their lives, and I don't think that you ever get the answer to that. I saw situations like in Lexington that I just shared with you. One person survived. It was the first officer and he was the flying pilot survived. It was the first officer and he was the flying pilot.

Debbie 43:39

You know, I think the most difficult thing you see is when these tragedies happen, is that loss of life.

Debbie 43:43

It's out of order and it's unexpected for people, and I think that those are the things that make it very tragic, because we can all put ourselves in the situation of someone else and say that could have been me, and I think I think that part that's the part that makes people nervous and that's the part that makes people scared.

Debbie 44:01

And so I will tell you, the most amazing things that I saw in human beings came out of tragedy, though lot of tragedy, though. Um, when people are put in very difficult situations and they're tested to their limit whether it's crews who are saving other people or whether it's family members who are grieving, and they are the people who put their arm around the person next to them that they've never met and they're the one who lifts them up Um, you know, you really, you really see amazing things. Human beings can be very impressive, and you know, everyone's heard of Sully, but there are. There are dozens or hundreds of people every year who will do something that is beyond themselves and beyond what anyone else expects, and they will save lives. They will do great things, and so you know, I think there's heroes among us every day.

Mo 45:01

So I love that and I love how I could feel your emotions as you talk about this, particularly as you talk about, well, only six. But you know, of course, each of them matters and each of them is, you know, somebody's world, and so it's very meaningful and personal to you. I could see that.

Debbie 45:22

Yeah, it is. I think you know there's people who deal with death every day and you think about it. You know doctors, you think about doctors, you think about people who you know who have to deal with tragedy every day. And you know I, I never, I never got used to it. Um, it was hard. And you know and I think that that's another piece of why you realize the work that you do matters Um, it really does, it matters, and I think there's so many professions out there that are incredibly fulfilling you know whether they're teachers, or you know firefighters, or people who you know who, who serve others in the community. The work that they do matters and they can change people's lives. And so, you know, I feel grateful that I I had that opportunity whether it was through legislation or investigation or technology to hopefully help make people's lives better.

Mo 46:20

Yeah, what do you think separates or what qualities or what is it that kind of takes over people in those heroic moments, because, you know, I would imagine some people train for it, whether it's the EMTs or the firemen and women, but I also know some ordinary people just rise to the occasion and and unusual circumstances. What do you, what do you think is the cause for that? Like, where does it come from?

Debbie 46:52

Yeah, I don't know. I mean I believe that people are good and so, you know, that's what I see. I see just incredible grace. You know, in the human spirit all the time. You know, and I think as leaders, I think we have an inordinate ability to influence and impact other people's lives. And I think if you, I think if you really care about people and you really connect with them, I think you really have the ability to do that. And that's I mean that I did like being a leader, I did like leading people.

Debbie 47:31

You know, and I think sometimes others, you know it can be, it can be a tremendous burden, but I do think sometimes as leaders and I think all of your listeners will think back there are some really bad things that can happen to you, to your organization, to your company, to people who work for you, your organization, to your company, to people who work for you. And it's really during those times that you have the opportunity to step up and you have the opportunity to kind of exceed people's expectations, because I think people's expectations often are very fairly low when bad things are happening. And so I think you really have the opportunity to lift people out of a situation that can be difficult and you know, and I did see that there was tremendous amount of camaraderie in very difficult circumstances.

Debbie 48:20

You know, we didn't have to go, sometimes to hike up a mountain, hike on a mountain where we had no idea where we were going. We're going through brush and you're, you know you're with three or four other people on the team and you know I mean through brush and you're, you know you're with three or four other people on the team and you know I mean those are very, um, uh, formative, you know, and kind of clarifying moments where you figure out like who's who's, who's the helper, you know, who's the person who's looking out for everyone and who's the person that when the bear comes, they're going to be running, you're going to get left behind, you know, and, um, I will tell you, I, I've just been so lucky. I feel like I worked. I mean, I literally worked with people who would have taken, taken a bullet for me and, um, I just, you know, I just feel really lucky and I hope I'm that person, you know, for people other than my children.

Mo 49:13

I know you would be, I absolutely know you would be. So, debbie, I want to close with maybe your favorite mantra quote book something that has been meaningful for you on your journey.

Debbie 49:48

Yeah, I would say I have this little little picture that I've had since I actually probably since I was a girl, and it's a Mary Englebright cartoon and it's a little girl who's holding a stick with a like a little knapsack, like like a hobo, and she's taken off down a path and there's a sign in front of her and it says your future, you know, with one direction. And it says you know the other road that you don't take, no longer an option. And the behind you it says don't look back. Right, and I feel like you know that is probably my, you know my. My mantra for life is whatever direction that you're going in, that's the direction that you go. Don't look back. No regrets. You know you can always change the path you're on. There's always going to be another fork in the road and you can take a different fork, but I'm I'm so grateful for all the things that have kind of roads that have led me to where I am, but I'm so excited about the future and what's next.

Mo 50:37

Well, it is evident that you are, and I cannot wait to see what you do next, because I know it will continue to be part of your exciting journey and your exciting story. Debbie, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation and for being with us today. Thank you, my pleasure, my pleasure. You can follow the Heart of Business podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Also, podcast reviews are really important as they have an impact on our visibility, so if you enjoyed today's podcast, please give us a like and a review. Finally, you could find other episodes on our website, internationalfacilitatorsorganizationcom. Thank you so much for listening.