Leadership and Log Canoes

How can the Chesapeake Bay teach leadership lessons? Professor Ken Reightler is a former astronaut and test pilot. He has worked with some of the most advanced systems on and off the planet. We discuss how working to rebuild an historic boat, a Chesapeake Bay log canoe, ranks high on the scale of leadership challenges that he has dealt with. And as a skipper of that watercraft, what do you need to think about in recruiting, training and racing with a crew, some of whom are human ballast. Professor Ken Reightler (CAPT, USN ret.) is a former NASA astronaut and pilot of two successful space shuttle missions including STS-60, the first U.S./Russian Joint Space Mission. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the US Naval Test Pilot School and served two tours at the Naval Air Test Center as a test pilot, project officer and flight test instructor pilot. He is a 1973 graduate of the Naval Academy, and he is currently the Tig H. Krekel, Class of ’75, Distinguished Chair in Space Science at the Naval Academy. He enjoys racing Chesapeake Bay sailing log canoes each summer on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.