The Unforgettable Joe T.
My friend, John Tippets wrote an article about his father, Joseph H. Tippets, who was born in Arimo, Idaho. Since he was an incredible Idaho Mormon, we thought it would be appropriate to publish the article here. So, without further adieu, I give you John’s article.
The Unforgettable Joe T.
John M. Tippets
If the roar of airplane engines gives you a lift and white contrails racing across a clear blue sky makes you smile, then you probably also enjoy stories about the pioneers of early aviation. Bold pilots, talented mechanics and engineers, and starry-eyed businessmen willing to take a risk, all played parts in this exciting 20th century technology. From the days of fragile biplanes through the jet age, courageous and amazing men and women challenged the impossible to give us the foundation of today’s aviation and aerospace industries.
Less well-known, but essential to progress, were the dedicated employees of the military and government agencies who helped establish pilot and aircraft standards, provided airways aids and facilities, and built the air traffic control system. The early Bureau of Air Standards evolved into the Civil Aeronautical Administration and then, in 1958, the Federal Aviation Agency. The work of these CAA/FAA civil servants greatly contributed to improvements in air safety and the confidence of the flying public. One career FAA employee who loved his job was my dad, Joseph H. Tippets.
When Joe Tippets was the Western Region Director in Los Angeles, his FAA colleagues, remembering his lucky escapes from two airplane crashes in the wilds of Alaska, often proclaimed they would have total confidence to fly anywhere, anytime with Joe T. He encouraged the best in others and his reputation was bigger than life.
Joseph was born in the small community of Arimo, Idaho, almost ten years to the day after the first successful flight of the Wright brothers’ flying machine. Arimo was a railroad town and, as a boy, Joe often rode the trains selling newspapers and candy to the passengers. His family operated a local hotel and livery stable, but eventually moved to Ogden, Utah, where his father became a stationmaster for the Union Pacific.
In 1932, Joe joined the Navy and was introduced to radio technology during basic training in San Diego. His first assignment was as a “Radioman 2nd Class” on board the USS Saratoga, a new generation aircraft carrier. The Saratoga and her sister ship, the USS Lexington, incorporated all the latest technology and advanced aircraft capabilities. He later served aboard the USS San Francisco and visited pacific ports from Hawaii to Alaska to the Panama Canal. Five years later, his expertise in radio technology provided an opportunity to transfer from the Navy to the U.S. Bureau of Air Commerce. He and his young wife, Alta, headed for Wendover, Utah, where Joe began his civil service career in September 1937, at a pay of $1,620 per annum.
Wendover, in the far western Utah desert, had been an airways installation since the 1920s, and was commissioned in 1932 as a radio beacon and flight services station.
Figure 1. Wendover, Utah FSS
Figure 2. Taken at FSS in Wendover, UT, A.A. Anderson, J.F. Copp, Joseph H. Tippets, Ray Tucker, and John Renfroe
Joseph’s first trainer at Wendover, Lloyd Clayton, described his pupil’s character as one simply without any bad traits. “He was always the same jovial, considerate, and dedicated person. I don’t think the thought actually occurred to me that Joe might one day be a high official in the FAA, but it certainly was no surprise when a few years later, I began to hear about his progress up the ladder.”
Figure 3. From “I’ve Got Wings!” Published In 1940 By The U.S. Army Air Forces, Office Of Flying Safety.
As the Bureau of Air Commerce became the Civil Aeronautics Administration at the end of the 1930s, there was much excitement about aviation in the Alaska territory. The vast geography and need for CAA employees meant new challenges at higher pay if you could handle the winter cold. Joe and Alta decided it was a good opportunity for them and arrived in the Alaska village of Yakutat, north of Juneau in the spring of 1940. Later that year, Joseph was transferred to the CAA regional office in Anchorage. The possibility of a future war in the Pacific, in which Alaska would be in a crucial defensive position for North America, was resulting in a major buildup of military and civilian aviation capabilities.
With a new little son, Joe and Alta built a home of their own on “I” Street, between 11th and 12th. Friends and co-workers lent a hand and the small house was finished in March 1941 (and is still standing today). A few months later, Joe was asked to take a leadership role as the first “branch president” of the Anchorage LDS (Mormon) congregation. Most of the members of his “branch” were young soldiers and airmen from the nearby Ft. Richardson and Elmendorf Army Air Base. Between his job traveling across the territory installing radio equipment and his new church responsibilities, it was a hectic time.
In January 1943, Joe and Alta were unexpectedly caught up in an incredible story of survival and rescue when he was a passenger on board a Lockheed Electra which disappeared southeast of Ketchikan. The pilot, Harold Gillam, was well-known throughout the territory and great efforts were made by military and local bush pilots to locate the wreckage. Extreme winter weather hampered the search, however, and after several weeks, it was abandoned.
On the snow-covered mountainside, a young CAA stenographer, Susan Batzer, had been pinned in the wreckage and badly injured. She died on the second day. A few days later, the pilot went for help and perished in the wilderness. But Joseph and three other passengers somehow, using wilderness skills they didn’t know they had, managed to stay alive. After three weeks, leaving the two most seriously injured men at a makeshift campsite, Joe and Sandy Cutting made it out to the shore of a large bay where they were finally rescued on day 29.
The next morning, despite their weakened conditions, Joe and Sandy insisted on accompanying a Coast Guard search party that returned to the mountains to locate the injured men. Amazingly, they were still alive and were brought out on improvised sleds and toboggans.
Marshal C. Hoppin, the first CAA Regional Administrator in Alaska, wrote in March 1943, “The fact that even four onboard the ill-fated plane survived the long, miserable month almost taxes our imagination, and proves indeed that faith, hope, courage, and endurance have tangible rewards. The age of miracles is not yet past!”
Having had his life preserved in this daunting series of events, Joe became determined to try and give his best efforts “to God and Country” for the rest of his life.
He actually walked away from another crash at Manley Hot Springs, south of Fairbanks in 1946, stating there was nothing injured but his pride.
The following year, 1947, Joe Tippets was transferred to Washington, D.C. as Chief of the Maintenance Engineering Division. After a series of assignments in 1960, he became the FAA Director, Bureau of Facilities and Material.
Figure 4. Joseph Tippets
“Joe T.”, as he came to be known to literally thousands of CAA/FAA personnel during his long career, had a genial and outgoing personality that enabled him to communicate readily with other people, no matter what their station in life, and to quickly establish an effective personal rapport that developed into many close and lasting friendships. In the 1950s, Joseph served as Chief U.S. Delegate to several international conferences on aeronautical matters, which resulted in establishing world-wide standards for ATC, air navigation, and communications. He made many friends among the ranks of foreign aviation representatives that he came in contact with throughout the world. In 1960-61, as a Director of Facilities, he was extensively involved in the planning of Dulles International and in the acquisition of the land for that airport.
Joseph also continued to be active in LDS Church assignments, serving as the Bishop of the Capitol Ward, 1949-1953, and in other significant responsibilities in the D.C. area over the years. His family of three sons expanded in 1952, this time with a daughter they named Marilyn.
In 1961, Joe T. was named the FAA Western Region Director, based in Los Angeles. His leadership of the region was legendary. He liked to call FAA personnel who were on duty at all hours of the day or night to inquire how things were going. When he heard a complaint from those FAA employees who were on temporary field assignments of having difficulties and delays in getting paid, he went to the folks in the accounting department and asked to be informed the next time that happened so he could personally apologize and deliver the check. Needless to say, there was no next time.
Figure 5. Joseph With Najeeb Halaby
Unexpected visits to remote locations, especially on holidays, was a standard Joe T. practice—to be “out on the trap line”. One staff officer, who often traveled with him, described those trips: “Tippets prefers visiting Arizona in the blazing heat of summer and the blizzard-swept mountain country in the dead of winter.”
Figure 6. Drawing About A Visit From Joe Tippets By A Western Region Staff Artist
“I remember one long and grueling trip to the Cedar City, Utah mountaintop site. . . . The snow vehicle had broken down on the way up and we had to slog the half mile to the top in a howling blizzard. . . . As we struggled toward the site in a scene resembling the crossing of Antarctica, Joe T. yelled out, “Just think, the government is paying for this travel for you to see special parts of this beautiful country . . . We never had it so good!”
Clifford Cernick
“I was a Radar Watchstander in the early morning at the LAX ATCT (located across the airport). On several occasions at 3 or 4 AM, Joe would be sitting in his car at the locked gate waiting for someone to come by. We would then spend a couple of hours talking about the radar equipment and the FAA in general. . . . On other occasions, at the same early hours, he would go up into the tower, sit in the ready room, and eat breakfast with the Air Traffic Controllers. He would listen intently as they would explain their equipment and their work.”
Wayne Lynch
Figure 7. A Visit To The Ontario, CA Tower
Figure 8. Joe With Lee Warren, A Regular Traveling Companion
During that time in Los Angeles, Joseph Tippets also earned his pilot’s license, a multi-engine rating and he personally piloted the FAA’s Queen Air as he maintained a pretty hectic pace across the nine states of the region.
Figure 9. Drawing About Joe Tippets After He Received His Pilot’s License, By A Western Region Staff Artist
In the aftermath of the March 1964 (Good Friday) Alaska earthquake, which was 9.2 magnitude and second largest of the 20th century, Joseph, with others of the Western Region and FAA Headquarters staff, visited Alaska in support of FAA recovery activities. On that trip, Joe had several hours in the co-pilot seat of the agency’s NC-5 (a DC 3).
Joseph’s career of dedicated public service and exceptional leadership was recognized in the spring of 1967 as he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. (Dr. Norman Vincent Peale was another honoree that year.) Significantly, it had been a biographical summary prepared by the FAA employees in the Western Region and quietly submitted to BYU that contributed to this special recognition.
That same April, Joseph Tippets was appointed as the FAA’s Associate Administrator, Personnel and Training. But, despite being back in D.C., Joe T. did not change his “walk the talk” management style. An ATCS at Dulles described “It was 2:00 AM and the mid-watch was just setting in when the TRACON door opens and in comes Joe Tippets with ID card in hand. We sat and talked for two hours about FAA issues until 4:00 AM when he left to go to the center.”
In the Personnel & Training role he felt he was able to represent and serve his fellow employees, but, tragically, his term was cut short when he died on October, 18th 1968. At his funeral, David Thomas, his longtime friend and colleague, who was at that time the acting Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, told this story:
“I was back in the bush in Alaska and an old grizzled prospector came up to me and said, “I hear you’re from Washington, D.C.” I said, “I am.” He said, “It’s a big town, isn’t it?” and I said, “Yes, it’s a big town.” He said, “It’s probably so large you never heard of a man named Joe Tippets. He was the finest man that was ever in Alaska.”
Given the opportunity, Dad would have described the prospector as having had too small a sample. However, many others who knew and loved Joe Tippets might say that the prospector was right. Joseph’s son, David, who stayed in the DC area described, “Dad was the greatest manager I have ever heard of. I worked for the U.S. Government for 35 ½ years, and never knew of any administrator who engendered the love, admiration, and respect that he did. He was truly a gifted and talented leader.”
When he was buried in Heber City, Utah, local FAA personnel had arranged for a “missing man” flyover by a squadron from Hill Air Force Base. He had been an aviation pioneer and would be truly missed.
Figure 10. Joseph Tippet’s Name On The “Wall of Honor,” At The Smithsonian Air And Space Museum, Udvar-Hazy Annex, Dulles International Airport, Virginia
Note: The famous 1943 Alaska plane crash and survival story, largely told in Joseph’s own words, is captured in a book entitled Hearts of Courage, published in 2008.
Copies are available from:
JohnTippets@yahoo.com
$ 19.95 plus $3.00 S&H
Amy, In March of 1963, 20 years after Dad’s survival of the crash in Alaska, the Pocatello Chamber of Commerce made him an Honorary Chief of Pocatello …. recognizing him for outstanding public service. He recieved a beautiful Headdress and was named “Chief no-fly, walk-out”.
Also FYI, this coming sunday July 4th the BYU TV production, the “Hearts of Courage” story about Dad’s Alaska experience, will air again at 12noon MDT
Thanks for the update. I hope to view the show on BYU TV. I know they have streaming television on their website.