Survival Lessons Learned From US Airways Flight 1549 Give Banking CEOs Something to Emulate

As I watched Larry King Live on February 11, US Airways flight 1549 survivors repeated these three words: strength, training, teamwork. Both the crew and the passengers used them to describe what made the landing and the rescue miraculous successes.

Captain Sullenberger and copilot Jeffrey Skiles used every bit of their inner strength and training to use the Hudson River as runway of survival. Their efforts have been called "the most successful water landing in aviation history." Moreover, they were part of the team that aided in the rescue; Captain 'Sully' was the last to evacuate his plane, but not until he had made two surveillance walks down the aisle, checking for passengers. All the while, the plane was sinking.

Copilot Skiles also aided in the rescue, giving the shirt off his back to a trembling passenger who had jumped into the frigid waters and then boarded a raft. Both he and Captain Sully retrieved life vests that the passengers had left behind and offered them to passengers without one as they hurriedly exited.

The three flight attendants efficiently, professionally, and bravely aided every passenger by helping them exit and board the life rafts. One of them was severely wounded and in pain.

When the media, and even President Obama, remarked about the crew's heroism, the response was simply, "we did the job we were trained to do." Wisely, flight attendant Sheila Dail summarized the successful survival on one factor: teamwork.

This brings me to my point: where is the evidence of strength, training, and teamwork when it comes to defaulting banks' CEOs, mainly the eight who testified before Congress admitting to "having learned their lesson" AFTER collecting $191 million in total salaries? Where were their instincts telling some to use their strength and training so that their bank would not default in the first place? Where was their integrity when it came to collecting decadent sums of salaries and bonuses without accountability to their employees, investors, and tax payers who bailed them out?

If they have learned a lesson, it should be the one taught by the survivors of flight 1549: survival means accountability in every way, whether you're paid a little or a lot--even if your compensation is a mere "thank you". If these "gentleman" have learned a lesson, let them prove it by giving back to their community by denying themselves salaries and bonuses for the sake of their company, their country, and future generations. This is the life vest that they owe for piloting their company into a disastrous dive. This is the clipboard containing all of the survivors' names that Captain Sully carried out of his plane. This is part of the salvage operation that will save our nation.

I challenge all the CEOs of our nation to choose to be part of the team leading us toward survival, rather than play the bullies who never made it on the team. I ask you directly, "Do you want to unselfishly be part of the rescue operation or emulate the plane survivor in her fur coat who asked another survivor to go back inside the drowning plane and retrieve her purse?"