On May 10, 1972, Steve Ritchie was flying one of four McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms sent to penetrate North Vietnamese airspace ahead of an imminent air strike. The mission went awry and one of the planes was shot down; the two men inside it were presumed killed or captured. But then, 22 days later, Ritchie's radio picked up a call from one of the downed men: "Hey guys," said Captain Roger Locher, "I've been down here a long time. Any chance of picking me up?"
Locher, the only survivor, had been hiding in the North Vietnamese jungle, behind enemy lines, for three weeks. After a rescue effort was aborted because of heavy ground fire, General John Vogt, the four-star commander of the U.S. Air Force in Southeast Asia, made a momentous decision. He canceled all other missions and instead committed every resource, including more than 150 aircraft, to the rescue of Locher. The effort succeeded.
Now Ritchie, a retired brigadier general, regularly gives speeches that apply the lessons he learned in military service to business and management. "Compare that to a company: How does the supervisor or the head of the organization demonstrate that employees are the most important part of the entire operation? If you can have that in business, I would submit that the business would be wildly successful."
Since graduating from the Air Force Academy in 1964, Ritchie has distinguished himself in all three categories of military service—Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserve. He's the only American pilot ever to down five MiG-21s, earning him the elite designation of Fighter Pilot Ace. He's run his own business, campaigned for public office, and served as a consultant and speaker in both the governmental and commercial arenas. But through it all, Ritchie considers the lessons he learned in the armed forces—those of character, integrity, discipline, teamwork, communication, and camaraderie—the most relevant. "These are absolutely vital," he says. "Without them, any business won't last in the long term, and we've seen too many examples of that recently."
Ahead of each speech, Ritchie asks event coordinators to complete a questionnaire so that he can tailor his speeches to suit each audience. And it's a strategy he sees working its magic from his perch on the podium. "I've seen tears in people's eyes and rolling down their cheeks," Ritchie says. "That's a very strong emotion, and it's one of the reasons that I keep doing this."