Ex-Pilot Shows Gratitude to Pan Am in a Big Way

A grateful Everard Bierer wants to give a bit back to the company where he made his living for more than 30 years.

For virtually his entire career, he was a pilot for Pan American World Airways.

“Pan Am was my life,” says the 84-year-old former captain, who at his retirement in 1966 was chief of Pan Am’s operations in Brazil. “I enjoyed it. Now Pan Am is ailing, and I thought I could help out.”

Indeed, Bierer has done something that appears to be unique in corporate America: A few days ago, the North Palm Beach, Fla., resident gave the troubled airline a check for $400,000. He hopes, though he has doubts, that it will help the carrier survive.

When the idea came to him, he tried to enlist a few fellow retired Pan Am pilots to kick in too. “I wanted to get a million dollars together,” he said in a telephone interview. “These fellows were all very wealthy. But no one else would do it. They said, ‘Keep us posted. Let us know how it comes out.’ ”

He conceded that his gesture might be too little, too late to rescue Pan Am. “I’m afraid it’s useless,” he said sadly.

Nonetheless, said Pan Am Chairman Thomas G. Plaskett, “we are touched by Capt. Bierer’s affection for Pan Am and overwhelmed by his generosity.”

Company officials said the money will be used to buy computers for Pan Am’s pilot training facility in Miami.

Bierer made his money in the stock market. “I started to invest modestly in 1928,” he recalled. “I’d buy 10 shares here, 15 shares there. Percentage-wise, I did very well. I’d buy for $10 and sell for $15. I made my money grow.”

He said his gift to Pan Am won’t break him by any means. “My funds are still quite ample to take care of myself,” he said, adding that his “work” these days consists of maintaining his stock portfolio at the local branch of the Prudential-Bache investment firm.

Bierer began to arrange for his gift to Pan Am in June, at a time when the stock market was strong. By the time the money was to be turned over, the market had declined. To avoid having to liquidate stock at a loss, he borrowed the money for the gift and is paying 10% interest.

Besides a condominium in Florida, he owns a large house and a smaller beach house in Barbados, where he spends three months every winter. Having gotten into the habit when he was a Pan Am pilot, he travels a great deal and has just returned from a trip to Portugal. Today, he leaves on a weeklong Caribbean cruise.

He said he doesn’t remember the size of his airline salary. “I didn’t pay any attention,” he said. “I figured I was overpaid anyway.”

The 1928 Stanford University graduate got his job with Pan Am in 1930 because he had served in the Navy. In those days, the airline’s planes were virtually all seaplanes, or--as Pan Am called them--”flying boats,” so it recruited mainly from the Navy.

In 1936, Bierer was a junior flying officer on the first flight that carried paying passengers across the Pacific, from San Francisco to Manila. The aircraft, called the Hawaiian Clipper, landed only on water.

Bierer never became a participant in the age of jetliners, flying mainly DC-3s, DC-4s and DC-6s.

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