t’s that time of year again. Awards announcements, nominations, and events are flooding websites and email boxes all over the air cargo world. Trade publications (most in conjunction with trade shows) and industry organizations are all promoting awards-related solicitations, whether it be for votes, sponsorships of awards, or dinner seats for the actual awards ceremonies.
     There are awards for company of the year, person of the year, most influential, and lifetime service.
     The idea of recognizing and awarding exemplary effort is nothing new; in fact, handing out awards is as old as organized business itself.
     First of all, everybody appreciates recognition for a job well done . . . and there are plenty of deserving efforts that should be recognized.
     But we believe that there are too many awards.


     It really gets thick when companies run “vote for us” advertising as an integral part of their marketing campaigns. Since when did soliciting for votes equate into bonfire excellence in service?
    One vaguely off-putting result of the race to awards is winners running full-blown advertising programs of their awards with organizations that gave them the honor in the first place.
    Forgetting everything else, isn’t there something a tad less believable going on here?
    Advertising programs, event sponsorships, and tables to attend a gala sold as part of an awards package are a set up, period.
    The guys on the street here in New York City would call it payback, pure and simple.
    Hard working companies and people in air cargo don’t need that kind of grief at what should be a moment of enlightenment and reflection for a job well done.


     A highly placed air cargo executive who asked to go unnamed thinks that awards committees need to look a little closer as they go about the business of recognizing true winners:
     “We think too much of our senior teams and not enough of the people making it happen every day at the terminals, sales offices, and GSA locations.
     “Air cargo needs to recognize the great job all our people do to make this industry successful.”
     “Maybe there should be some new award categories to include a broader spectrum of people and businesses.
     “There are plenty of other categories that could and should be considered outside of the aforementioned ‘narrow band’ of award recipients as the industry gears up for 2013.”
     Another top executive in air cargo (unnamed) thinks awards should come in part from customers with some benchmarking:
     “Performance should be based on profitability and the views of our customers.
     “They should decide who is performing best and we should use more analytical methods, such as Cargo 2000 or other industry resources, to measure performance.”
     We think that the best reward is telling the story, because the words bring out the people and thoughts that make a real difference in the industry.

     If we are to believe awards are legit, we think a great deal more openness and transparency is needed in the awards process.
     No doubt that there is plenty of constructive thought out there when it comes to the giving and receiving of air cargo industry awards.

Actress Sally Field immortalized the acceptance speech in 1985 when she was awarded Best Actress in the film Places In The Heart.      Ms. Field (who is again nominated for an Oscar in 2013 for her role in the movie Lincoln) gushed, "You like me! Right now you like me!” Those sentences became a punch line around the world.      Billy Wilder, the great German-born movie director whose 100th birthday was celebrated in 2007, (he died in 2002 at 95), uttered the best quote ever about awards.      Among the masterpieces Wilder directed are "Some Like It Hot", "Sunset Boulevard", and the equally great and somewhat overlooked "One, Two, Three".      Wilder said:      “Awards are like hemorrhoids: once in a lifetime every asshole gets them.”

     However, there is one award that has long legs in air cargo history, and that is the TIACA Hall of Fame.
     Whether you agree with who has won that recognition (and there seems to be a requisite number of recent winners who are also supporters of the organization), the TIACA HOF is a one of a kind sanctuary for some air cargo builders who have done some truly great things and otherwise might have been forgotten to history, like the wonderful Walter H. Johnson, Siegfried “Siggi’ Koehler, Robert Arendal, Ram Menen, Bill Spohrer, Joseph Berg, John Emery, Jr. and others.
     The most appealing aspect of the TIACA Hall of Fame is that the inductees are chosen from the people attending almost every air cargo industry gathering, including TIACA events.


     Of course a gaping overlook in the TIACA HOF scheme (and everywhere else) is that, to date (in TIACA’s case), not a single woman has made it to the HOF.
     But that said, hope for equality, or at least balance, springs eternal, as does a long list of excellent choices at the point TIACA gives women the vote.


     We close our annual awards tirade raising one more point:
     Why not bring back some vestige of the triumphant and beautiful grand trophies that were awarded during the first generation of aviation? It might make some of these awards worth winning.

Pictured left to right—The Harmon Trophy came into being in 1926 when Clifford B. Harmon, a wealthy sportsman and aviator, established three international trophies to be awarded annually to the world's outstanding aviator, aviatrix, and aeronaut.   The Harmon Trophy—the aviator's award—is given for the most outstanding international achievements in the preceding year, with the art of flying receiving first consideration.   The Bendix Trophy for cross-country races, sponsored by the Bendix Corporation, begun in 1931. The award was established to encourage aviation progress. Winner of the first race was Major James H. Doolittle who flew from Los Angeles to Cleveland, Ohio at an average speed of 223 miles per hour.   The PulitzerTrophy, established in 1920 by American publishing magnate, Ralph Pulitzer, who created a speed contest to encourage U.S. designers to build faster airplanes.

     The Bendix, Harmon, and Pulitzer Trophies are magnificent works of art and testimonies to the beauty of the Art Deco period. Gorgeous honorariums, they were given to the likes of Doolittle, Lindbergh, and later to others who advanced aviation.
     Air cargo should create a grand award that is beautiful, believable, and passed on from year to year to the next generation in the industry.
     There is no doubt the air cargo awards trend will continue. P.T. Barnum, the great American showman who made the Circus and sideshow freaks famous 100 years ago, once said: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
     Surveying the manner in which the industry creates winners and losers out of hardworking air cargo companies and people, and in some cases even expects folks to pay for that honor, strikes us as just too dumb to be believed.
     Maybe there should be an award for the award givers: “Best Presenter of Dubious Distinctions.” Your move.
Geoffrey Arend

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