9/11 Resiliency Essay Competition
Marks 20th Anniversary of 9/11
During 2021 and in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we're offering the "Reclaiming the Sky" Essay Competition.
The competition will give today's airport and airline workers – and students (including aviation and high school students) - as well as military personnel from our Edge4Vets program - an opportunity to tell how lessons of courage they learn from 9/11's aviation heroes can help them meet Covid 19 challenges in their lives.
Essay participants will have a chance to glean lessons of courage and resiliency from employees profiled in "Reclaiming the Sky: 9/11 and the Untold Story of the Men and Women Who Kept America Flying."
We're enlisting sponsors to cover the administrative costs of the contest and provide free books to aviation workers and students who cannot afford them.
All profits from "Reclaiming the Sky" go to aviation charities, including the American and United Airlines flight attendant charities and the Betty Ong Foundation.
We've created a special category to give high school students a chance to tell how they can apply the resiliency lessons of the 9/11 heroes to meet Covid 19 challenges in their lives.
Photo on right shows, back row: Bernie Schettino, Tom Innace, Sue Baer.
Front row: Terri Rizzuto, Toni Knisley, Tom Murphy, Debbie Roland.
Essay Advisory Committee
We're grateful to aviation leaders for promoting this competition, including University Aviation Association, AAAE/NEC, ACI-NA's HR Committee and others.
When "Reclaiming the Sky" was first published in 2006 on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, author Tom Murphy broke out the elements of heroism reflected in the stories of the aviation employees he profiled. Listen to the radio clips below:
Photo above shows Ken and Jennifer Lewis, the married flight attendant couple aboard American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon.
Edge4Vets Supports Veterans
Healing principles from "Reclaiming the Sky" inform the curriculum for the Human Resiliency Institute's nationally successful Edge4Vets program. Edge4Vets has trained more than 1500 military veterans and service personnel in eight states and Canada since 2011. The workshops teach them how to tap their resiliency strengths to prepare for jobs that can lead to careers.
Veterans from Edge4Vets are helping administer the essay competition.
Offers training to help today's employees cope with pressures from congestion, delays and high security.
Operating out of Fordham's Gabelli School of Business, the Institute expands upon work initiated by Reclaiming the Sky, a non-profit that supported workers' resiliency after 9/11.
"Resiliency Edge" integrates priciples from "Reclaiming the Sky" into the training curriculum.
Aviation
workers profiled, include (top left) Bernie Schettino, Tom Innace, Sue
Baer. Front row, Terri Rizzuto, Toni Knisley and Debbie Roland, with
author, Tom Murphy.
Special thanks to American Airlines captain, Terry Thames, pictured above, who draped a flag out his cockpit window after returning to Washington following 9/11. The second photo shows a memorial offered for Port Authority of NY and NJ staff by the Newark Liberty International Airport Airline Managers Council (NIAAMCO.) Viewed from either direction, front or back, it reads: 9/11. In the third photo, Oneka Lupe, a customer service agent at Newark, does her best to enhance the traveling experience for customers.
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The book "Reclaiming the Sky" Offers Profiles
in Aviation Courage
View news clips from the book's 2006 introduction at the Pentagon - interviewing American Airlines Flight Attendant colleagues of the crew from Flight 77.
- All author profits support Aviation Charities. Learn how each charity is serving its community in unique fashion.
- Read first-person accounts from today's aviation professionals who embody the resiliency principles reflected in Reclaiming the Sky's stories of aviation courage:
- See photos from several of our participating charities' 9/11 anniversary Remembrances.
"Claiming Your Sky" Supports Students
We offer a program that helps students prepare for a career in aviation using the principles in the book.
- "Claiming Your Sky" puts the "leadership principles" from the stories into a curriculum to help students enhance decision-making skills, deepen their capacity for empathy and increase their chances for aviation employment.
