Excluding one flight to Naples with several other trustees and administrators, [Purdue University trustee JoAnn] Brouillette’s [twelve private, university-paid] flights [since the beginning of 2008] were to and from Fort Wayne, Ind., only spending 30 minutes in the air. Out of these flights, five of them carried no other passengers.
Me go UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN!
October 29th, 2009 at 3:53PM
You can go a long way by air in 30 minutes. A commuter flight from Monterey to San Francisco gets there in 22 minutes, but it would take a good two and a half hours to drive there.
October 29th, 2009 at 4:04PM
I don’t think the highways are quite as clogged, adam, between Fort Wayne and wherever.
October 29th, 2009 at 9:11PM
It’s an ego thing.
From mapquest it looks like 118 miles from West Laf to Fort Wayne. I used to regularly drive from Indianapolis to Bloomington and it was almost a pleasure.
I’m sure Veblen could chime in with examples of Spanier’s mis-use of his little airforce at Penn State.
Sad…
As an aside:
Not every one is as clueless as some university presidents, administrators, and regents. Our president, I understand, drives a Cadillac Escalade. Frank Cerra, not my favorite administrator, drives a Prius – he used to drive a Jaguar – because one of his kids chided him for not setting a good example. He also quit smoking to earn $25K for the U.
Years ago, when I worked at 3M, the big wheels used to have their own little reserved line of parking spaces right in the front of the parking lot. There were Porsches and pimpmobiles and a lot of other expensive motor vehicles. Except for one little Omni Horizon – which belonged to the Head Cheese. This was about the cheapest car you could buy at the time – I know because I drove one. When you wanted to talk to this guy, he’d come down to your lab. Most of the other management types would invite you down to what was then called mahogany row, if they could find time for you on their schedule.
Leadership matters.
October 31st, 2009 at 7:53AM
Well, if it is orange barrel season in Indiana, that 120 miles could take a long time.