Because he was my friend – A tribute to Alan B. Shephard, Jr., First American in Space

As we launch this website, I do want to pay tribute to a friend, Alan Shephard. My days with Bombardier opened many doors for me – doors that led to friendships that I cherish to this day. One door, opened by Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada, paved the way to an assignment for me to be “escort” to Admiral Alan Shephard during his tenure as spokesman for Bombardier.

At a NBAA Convention in Las Vegas in the mid-1990s, Alan and I pursued a busy schedule together, but we did have one open slot for about an hour. I called Steve Wynn’s office to see if we could stop by and say “Hello.” Steve agreed. Las Vegas, being Las Vegas, is filled with imposters – a thought that hadn’t occurred to me, but certainly did to Steve. When we walked into Mr. Wynn’s office, he said with some amazement, “Oh my, it really IS Alan Shephard.” That began a memorable half hour of storytelling between two icons.

Alan was an avid golfer. He loved to tell the story about how he had a golf club re-engineered into 3 pieces about a foot long each. He secretly slipped each piece into the legs of his space suit and they accompanied him on Apollo 14. Once clear of the earth’s gravity, he assembled the three pieces into what was the first outer-space version of a 6-iron. Once on the surface of the moon, he produced the golf club from the Lunar Module and proceeded to demonstrate the effects of lunar gravity on a golf shot while on national TV, but the bulkiness of his space suit caused him to shank the shot. That was embarrassing to him, but the ball nearly disappeared over the horizon in any event. Years later, he was lamenting that shot during one of our conversations, and I commented to him, “It was a good thing you shanked the shot, Alan. Otherwise, the golf ball might have hit you in the back of your helmet.”

Our friendship blossomed and while I was on a personal trip to the Monterey, California area, I called Alan to see if he and Louise, his wife, could join me for cocktails at the Stonepine Inn in Carmel Valley. After a delightful 45 minutes of conversation over drinks, we started to go our separate ways and Alan said to me, “Don’t say anything to anyone, but the doctors found something in my blood they don’t like.” Shortly thereafter, he was admitted to the hospital. He passed away from leukemia a few months later. That was July 21, 1998. Louise, his devoted wife of 53 years, passed away on August 25th — only a month later. Her obituary said she died from a heart attack. I know she died from a broken heart.

I will always remember what Alan did for our country, what he was as a man, how much he loved his wife and family, and how fortunate I was to be his friend – if only for a short time.

Alan was a hero in the truest sense of the word. He was what we all aspire to be: brave, handsome, dedicated, humorous, charming, grounded and good. We’ve lost a lot of legendary aviators recently – Neil Armstrong, Bob Hoover, John Glenn, and most recently Richard W. Emery who helped build business aviation into the industry that it is today. I can only hope the current generation of young aviators has such heroes to guide their way.