R O B E R T.  W.  B A K E R.  '66.

The following feature story appeared in the campus publication MOSAIC in April, 2000.

Meeting the challenges of airline management

Robert W. Baker’s head may frequently be in the clouds, but his mind is always fixed squarely on business. Vice chairman of American Airlines, Inc., Baker is airborne two or three days every week en route to Washington, DC, and other major U.S. cities, where he represents his company on technical and operational issues before the Federal Aviation Authority, the National Transportation Safety Board, and other federal agencies. Whether in the role of passenger or airline executive, Baker has a keen interest in clouds and weather.

"Every day at 7:15 a.m., I have a conference call with all the operating groups in the company to review what happened to us yesterday and what we think is going to happen today," Baker explains. "We may discuss today’s plan -- if there’s weather coming into New England, for example, and what we’re going to do about it. Are we going to cut the schedule? Are we going to thin it out? We may talk about a volcano that blew up in South America overnight, a terrorist incident, or whatever’s going on in the world."

During his 31-year career, Baker has gained an intimate knowledge of the operations of the world’s second-largest airline. Based at the airline’s corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, TX, Baker is involved in all aspects of American’s business and oversees some 60,000 employees. For the past 15 years, he has been the senior executive responsible for maintenance and engineering, flight, operations planning and performance, corporate security, purchasing, corporate real estate, cargo, and safety. Recognized as one of the airline industry’s leaders, he was described by the Wall Street Journal as American’s "longtime operations guru" when it reported on his promotion to American’s number-two slot in January.

Learning how to learn
At Trinity, Baker studied economics, intending to follow the path of his father, who retired as general manager of American’s Philadelphia office. One professor proved particularly memorable. "Professor of Economics Robert A. Battis made me realize that I had better do some work if I was going to get through the department," Baker says. "I learned a lot from him."

But more than any specific economics course, Baker credits Trinity’s broad curriculum with contributing to his success. "The diversity of a liberal arts curriculum taught me the ability to learn," Baker explains. "In business, if you’re going to be successful you really can’t have a vertical career in one little slice of a corporation. The people who eventually run the company have to be broad-based people. You’re on a constant learning curve if you’re really trying to optimize your own career."

After graduating from Trinity, Baker further developed his business skills by enrolling at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned an M.B.A. in 1968. He joined American later that same year as a marketing management associate in New York and over time advanced through the company’s ranks, holding passenger and freight management positions in New York, Cleveland, and Chicago. He was named vice president in charge of American’s southern division in 1977, vice president of freight marketing in 1979, and vice president of passenger sales and advertising in 1980. He became vice president of marketing automation in 1982 and was appointed senior vice president of information systems in 1985.

Management challenges
The airline business has tested Baker’s business acumen. "Most businesses either have a lot of capital and very few people or lots of people and not much capital," Baker says. "At American, we have a lot of both people and capital. That’s what makes it such a management challenge. You’re responsible for such huge amounts of capital, mostly airplanes, but also facilities. If you look at an average airline, its revenue is about equal to its capitalization. Then you add to that a lot of people, most of whom are unionized, and you have a real challenge. Because of the high concentration of assets, you really can’t afford to have a work stoppage or a strike because you just run out of cash in a big hurry."

Baker has successfully met the challenges presented by the airline industry while also assisting Trinity. Through his efforts, American has underwritten travel between Hartford and Trinidad for participants in a scholarly exploration and celebration of carnival traditions as part of an academic initiative organized by James J. Goodwin Professor of English Milla C. Riggio.

With his responsibilities taking him to sites within the United States and around the globe, Baker relishes spending his leisure hours close to terra firma. In his spare time, he and his wife, Marty, retreat to their lake house in east Texas, where he enjoys riding his tractor to mow his expansive lawn and going out on his boat.

More than three decades after graduating from Trinity, Baker says the ability to learn from what he discovered at Trinity continues to sustain him. "There’s nothing that’s more fun to me than to go out in the American Airlines system somewhere, particularly the maintenance bases, and spend a day with a mechanic and have him show me what he’s doing," Baker says. "That’s how you learn this business. The ability to learn and understand new concepts falls right out of a liberal arts background."

-Suzanne Zack