Bill Reavis Probably Never Knew the Enormous Impact He Had on My Career...And it's My Fault

Last week I learned of the passing of a legend in aviation public relations, a man who made such an impact on his field his death was reported on by the very publications he pitched over the years. Bill Reavis died on March 14 after a battle with cancer. He was 77 years old.

His death has hit me hard for a few reasons. The first is I didn’t even know he was sick. The other is that I lost touch with him over the years and because of that I never got to tell him how much of an impact he made on my career. I can only hope that deep down he knew how grateful I was for his mentorship.

I was a public relations neophyte when I landed a job as a communications specialist at AlliedSignal Aerospace in Phoenix. I was 28 years old and most of my experience up until then had been in employee communications, but I envisioned myself as a public relations person because I had a degree in journalism and had worked in the media. But like most former journalists, I didn’t know what I didn’t know about PR.

At AlliedSignal, my first cube was right outside Bill’s office. In the beginning, I heard more than I saw as Bill liked to talk to the media on his speakerphone with his office door wide open. He was loud, but whenever he was on the phone with a reporter (or anyone for that matter) it was as if he was talking to an old friend. He was tough as nails on the outside, intimidating as hell to a young inexperienced guy like me, but I marvelled at how engaging he was with people. On the phone, he was warm and outgoing and you could tell he generally enjoyed discussing aviation with reporters whether they were industry experts or general news reporters who knew little about avionics, auxiliary power units, or ground proximity warning systems.

Before long Bill started inviting me to eat lunch with him and others in the AlliedSignal cafeteria. Well, it wasn’t as much an invitation as it was a statement — let’s eat.

Soon Bill starting asking if I wanted to go “off campus” to eat lunch and like an eager-to-please puppy I went along to watch the master in action. Eating off campus always meant The Left Seat, an old-school joint less than a mile from the office that literally sat along the flight line at Sky Harbor Airport with views of the runway. It was a favorite haunt of pilots and aerospace engineers and salesmen. The food was mediocre, but I soon learned we weren’t there for the food. We were there to mingle with the industry folks, show that we were in the aviation club, and every once in a while overhear some industry insight that could lead to a story pitch. Bill was teaching me how to be a PR guy even though looking back I had no idea I was being taught.

Looking back now, I can trace pretty much every lesson I ever learned about public relations to Bill. For example, he taught me that (for the most part) it was my job not to be quoted in an article, rather to ensure the right executive or product person was featured. He taught me to always stand behind or to the side of the camera during a television interview. He taught me to send reporters little notes and updates on things I thought they’d find interesting to help them with their jobs, but also to ensure they knew they could always call me on background if they needed information for a story whether it was about our company or not. He taught me to call reporters back immediately even if I didn’t have the information they needed just to let them know I got their message and was working on it.

Bill also taught me how to write a news release, something he did by both asking me to edit his releases and by allowing me to draft some for him. There is no experience like hands-on experience and even though none of those releases ever included my name as media contact that experience helped me immensely as I eventually moved into other jobs at AlliedSignal and beyond. Thirty years on I still follow the same simple rules for writing news releases and it has served me well over my career.

On my Linkedin page today there is a referral from a former writer at the Phoenix Business Journal about me that wouldn’t be there were it not for Bill. It says: “Creative, professional, well connected and a gold mine of information are just a few of the skills Len offers to reporters hunting for the fast track into the business world. An e-mail or a phone call from Len takes priority over others.”

I left AlliedSignal in 1999 after five years on the job, but Bill’s impact on my career never ended. I am now 30 years into this career and still going, and I have Bill to thank for that in no small way. Yet I never let him know, at the time, or in the following years, that I was grateful for what he taught me. Therein lies the lesson of this post.

Bill retired a few years back, and I even ran into him one day at the mall. It was right after his wife died, and you could tell he was devastated. He worked his whole life to support his family, and then when he finally left the corporate world to enjoy quality time with the love of his life she left him. I could hear the pain in his voice.

I never reached out to Bill after that to check in. I never got the chance to tell him how much he meant to me. Truthfully, I was intimidated by him even when he was in his late 60s. In my mind, I still saw that little bulldog of a man, so gruff on the outside, the Vietnam vet who when I asked him if he killed people in the war, he simply responded that he had no choice as they were trying to kill him.

I regret that I lost touch with Bill. I regret that I didn’t get his number that day at the mall so I could have called him up and invited him to lunch. I regret that I never got to tell him how much he taught me about PR and about life.

I am going to use this regret as one more lesson. I’m going to look up a few people who impacted my life along the way and let them know what they meant to me. I hope it’s not too late.