"At about 1 a.m. we were flying right next to the World Trade Center," Dickson, 52, recalls. "The Twin Towers were all lit up, and we had a spectacular vantage point from the cockpit. I remarked to one of the pilots what an incredible sight they were--little did we know that we were some of the last people to ever get that view."

 

Less than eight hours later, the world changed. In a hotel room just over a mile from what's now known as Ground Zero, Dickson was preparing for investor meetings when his phone rang. It was a Vanguard shareholder who he was traveling with. "You'd better turn on the TV," the shareholder said. "A jet just crashed into one of the Twin Towers."

 

In a state of disbelief, Dickson tried to walk to his first meeting and was confronted with a sea of humanity. He recalls: "People were moving north from lower Manhattan by any means possible. It was very orderly, there was no fighting--just this incredible mass movement. We could see the smoke billowing above the skyline; there was this acrid smell. When I finally got back to my hotel, I started running a remote emergency center from my room."

 

Dickson talked to his wife and his associates at Vanguard. Their passengers and planes were safely on the ground and accounted for. Relief.

 

But Dickson's mind began racing as a new reality set in.

 

"For however long we were grounded, we'd be devastated financially," he recalls, echoing the concerns of every airline, big and small, around the country. "We had a couple of thousand passengers to re-accommodate. Local passengers could just go back home, but those in transit we were putting up in hotels. Homeless shelters provided cots. We were just running on adrenaline."

 

Dickson adds: "It was like a war--there was fear and angst in your gut, but we had to do what we had to do to stay alive as a company. I got back home to Dallas later that week, and as my wife and I drove to church on Sunday, I just broke down crying. It was just a huge release of emotion."

 

Dickson details the 10 months that followed—including what he learned after the gut-wrenching decision to shut down Vanguard and declare bankruptcy in July 2002--in his book, Never Give Up: 7 Principles for Christians Leading in Tough Times (Barbour).

 

"When we had to file for bankruptcy, that was a brutally tough day, a heartbreaking time," Dickson notes.

 

Dickson worked on and off in consulting jobs after Vanguard's shutdown--until January 2005 when he signed on as chief marketing officer for Midwest Airlines, one of Vanguard's arch rivals.