Originally Posted by Mudhen200

Brad killed the HIMS program because of control. If a pilot were to have drug or alcohol problems, and get Alaska Airlines on the 5 O'clock news, he wants to be able to fire the pilot on the spot and remove the problem immediately for damage control. Image control above all else.
If the pilots put on a orange lanyard over the Thanksgiving and Christmas flying season, they absolutely freak. Ben charges his base chiefs to actually go wonder the halls of the terminals, looking for orange. I was actually standing next to one of these base chief's, while wearing my orange lanyard. We were simply chatting about upcoming Christmas and life in general. This base chief did not give two hoots or care one little bit about my lanyard. He never said a word about it. He then gets a text and chuckles. He shows me the text and I see that it's Ben asking for an update on how much orange was out there. This was around 0700 on a Friday and the most important thing on Ben's mind was how many orange lanyards were in the terminal. Image above all else.
The only things these guys care about is image and the metal moving (preferably on time). If the metal stops moving, they pay attention in a hurry. If the image is in any way tarnished, they move like their hair is on fire.