Dad was a hero

CSUB alumna Teresa Hitchcock is the daughter of Kern County’s only Medal of Honor winner.

Her father, Army Staff Sgt. Larry S. Pierce, was killed in action on Sept. 20, 1965, near Ben Cat, Vietnam, not far from Ho Chi Minh City, then known as Saigon. His unit of the 173^rd Airborne Brigade was among the first units to be sent to Vietnam in the spring of 1965.

“He had been there six months,” Hitchcock said. She was 5 years old.

She said her father was on a reconnaissance patrol, “scouting for enemy positions when they were caught in an ambush. The first thing he did was take out a machine-gun nest, then pursued the enemy down a road. He saw a mine about to be detonated, and threw his body over it, and saved 29 men with him.”

By Mike Stepanovich

Teresa Hitchcock knew that she would need more than just the cursory information provided by U.S. Department of Transportation if she was going to get a commitment from Continental Airlines to begin service from Bakersfield.

A 1999 CSUB graduate with a double major in political science and economics, Hitchcock, the analysis and marketing manager for Kern County Airports since May 2001, also knew that the Bakersfield market was ripe for a major airline due to the community’s astonishing growth. But how could she get that across?

The Transportation Department provides data free to the airlines showing the number of passengers that leave or arrive at any given airport in the country. Hitchcock and her boss, Ray Bishop, director of Kern County Airports, felt the numbers from Meadows Field were flawed. They showed a relatively small number, not sufficient to generate much interest from airlines. What those numbers didn’t show was the number of local people flocking to Los Angeles to catch flights because of the lack of flights from Bakersfield.

“Those numbers didn’t show the potential,” Hitchcock said.

So she conducted a leakage study that showed actual air travel from Bakersfield, not just from Meadows Field.

“The information from DOT is free but it’s very basic,” she said. “There are 429 commercial airports in the United States, so the DOT just tracks the number of passengers from each airport. When you want more detailed information, you have to develop that data yourself so that you can present your case to the airlines.

“When we went to Continental, they were skeptical at first. They looked at the numbers from the DOT, and said, that’s fine, but how much business travel and how much leisure travel do you have? We were able to say, ‘We have that information.’”

So pent up was the demand for flights from Bakersfield that three months after Continental began twice-daily service from Meadows Field to Houston, it had a 96 percent load factor, meaning that 96 percent of the available Continental flights to and from Bakersfield were sold. “That was the highest load factor in their entire system,” Hitchcock said. “Today they’re looking to add another flight.”

Continental’s success no doubt helped convince Delta Air Lines to begin twice-daily service to Salt Lake City. Delta will be flying the same type of 50-passenger regional jets that Continental uses.

And Hitchcock isn’t done. Even though the new terminal is designed to handle four airlines and all four slots are filled with United, America West, Continental and Delta, she’s landed Mexicana Airlines, which will begin daily non-stop service to Guadalajara, Mexico, soon, and is targeting Denver.

“Guadalajara is the No. 1 destination from Kern County in terms of tickets sold,” she said. Since those flights will require customs and agricultural inspections, the old terminal will become the airport’s international terminal. “We’ll remodel the building and create a new in-bound side where customs will be,” she said.

She’s also working to get a carrier with daily service to Denver. “That’s our next target hub,” she said.

“We’re trying to pick off the top destinations. Salt Lake City was good because we were looking for a northern hub.”

And since expanding air service is one of her primary responsibilities, she’s also working to expand Meadow’s Field’s air cargo operation. “Our next big push is air cargo,” she said. “It’s a similar task to passenger carriers.”

Those tasks involve Hitchcock calling on various airlines and convincing them that Bakersfield is a profitable site for them. “I’ll sit down with an airline knowing it’s not going to be here anytime soon and talk about their plans and see what I can do to make their decision different. … I stress the advantages of being here. … We’re trying to pick off the top destinations. At the rate we’re growing we’re hoping to see mainline service here in the next 10 years.”

The new terminal should help lure local travelers to fly from Bakersfield, which in turn should help lure more airlines to Bakersfield. “For the airlines it’s all about filling seats,” she said. “Airlines will fly out of a cow pasture if there are enough people there to make it profitable. They want airports with low cost and that have passengers. With the new terminal, a lot of people will want to fly out of Bakersfield now, which will generate better air service.”

It’s the dynamics of change that have fueled Hitchcock’s enthusiasm. “I really love my job,” she said. “It’s fun and exciting. It’s exciting because we’re at a place in time where we’re seeing a new direction for the county. We have a new terminal and we’re going from a domestic airport to an international airport.”

And while Hitchcock is enthusiastic about her job, Airport director Ray Bishop is enthusiastic about Hitchcock.

“From my point of view she is one of best,” he said. “She’s a doing super job here at the airport. Her statistical skills are unsurpassed. We do a lot of … forecasting here, and I’ll tell you what – whoever trained her did a really good job because she’s just jumped right in the middle of the airline industry, and as you can imagine it’s extremely complicated and sophisticated. You’ve got people with Ivy League MBAs that she deals with every day and she doesn’t take a back seat to anybody. She’s as good as they get.”

Hitchcock attributes that to her degree from CSUB. “My degree was absolutely critical,” she said. “They were looking for someone with strong writing and math skills, and of course computer skills are essential.

“I was very grateful for the political science class I took from professor Mark Martinez on Latin American politics when I sat down with the Mexicana Airlines officials. And every time I make an airline presentation, I use economics. The person I made the presentation to at Delta had a master’s from Yale; your numbers have to make sense to them – and trust me, they know if they don’t. When I rewrote our airport certification manual, that required writing skills.

“What I really like about my job is that I’m not pigeonholed. There are so many things you can be involved with when you’re part of a small staff. I’ve learned a tremendous amount about airport operations. I think I’ve got the best job in town.”

Hitchcock and her husband, Mark, are the parents of three sons.