Fan Male: Randy Martinez

President and chief operating officer, World Airways

by Kate Yandoh

October 1, 2005

W ith a charter fleet of wide-body aircraft transporting both cargo and passengers (often in uniform: the company is the largest commercial carrier of U.S. military personnel) to 140 airports in 50 countries, it's difficult to find a place on the map or a time zone where Peachtree City-based World Airways isn't working.

Randy Martinez had just taken over the helm when he was asked to reenact the most significant moment of the company's history, which happened on April 2, 1975. As the Vietnam war raged to an end, World Airways founder Ed Daly defied government restrictions and ordered two pilots to take off from Tan Son Nhut Air Base, evacuating 57 Vietnamese orphans in "Operation Babylift." The flight moved the U.S. government to create a larger effort, rescuing 4,000 more children. "Shirley Peck Barnes, who wrote The War Cradle about that historic flight, contacted us about marking its 30th anniversary by returning to Vietnam with the now-grown children," explains Martinez. "At the time, we were coming out of a tough period, financially, but we continued to talk."

Two and a half years later, after tracking down 21 of the original evacuees and members of the original crew and repainting a giant MD-11 to match how it would have looked in the 1970s, Martinez and Peck-Barnes took off from Atlanta in June 2005 with a plane full of emotion. "It was absolutely the most impactful trip I've had in my life," recalls Martinez, a former Air Force pilot who served for two decades and saw combat in the first Gulf War. "Just being with the people on that plane, who look at us as the reason they are alive today, learning what they'd accomplished and done for their communities as adults ... a lot of tears were shed, and I'm not ashamed to say quite a few of them were mine!"

A father of two daughters, Martinez also feels a strong sense of responsibility to children closer to the company's home base, "improving the quality of life where we live and do business." To support youth education and community programs funded by the Community Foundation for Fayette County, World Airways instituted "Blue Jeans Friday," where a $3 donation buys an employee the chance to come to work in something more comfortable. With World Airways matching each contribution, Blue Jeans Fridays generate over $7,000 a year, making the company the Foundation's largest single donor.

Although achieving 10 consecutive quarters of profitability in the airline business is a big source of pride for Martinez, "it's just illustrative of what our great employees do all the time ... we have a strong team of dedicated, humble, hardworking people ... who really illustrate the humanitarian culture we continue to foster." From the flight attendant (a former Operation Babylift crew member) who discovered an orphanage during her regular flights to Luanda, Angola, and led to World Airways "adopting" it, to the Atlanta-based crew who spent last Christmas Eve at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport putting on an impromptu holiday sendoff for troops departing for Iraq, "we're not a big company, but we touch a lot of hearts around the world."