Roll Players : They Ensure That Dignitaries Get the Red-Carpet Treatment

Every President from Dwight Eisenhower to George Bush has walked all over Joe Mack’s work.

So have the Pope, King Hussein of Jordan and the Emperor of Japan. So did Nelson Mandela, who even stopped to shake hands with Mack.

Mack is part of the select custodial team at Los Angeles International Airport charged with rolling out the red carpet for visiting dignitaries. Along with adhering to proper carpet etiquette, Mack and three other employees on the crew must ensure the appropriate flags are flown and crowd-control barriers are erected, if necessary.

“The Pope and Mandela were exciting,” said Mack, who plays down the thrill of meeting such important personages. “It’s just like anybody’s job, you’ve been doing it so long that it’s no big thing.”

But the head of the LAX maintenance staff, Charlie Benson, is not as nonchalant about the pontiff’s and the South African leader’s separate visits a few years ago.

“I didn’t shake their hands, but I was close,” Benson said. “I was right up front. It was quite an experience.”

Benson also fondly recalled his crew’s wide public exposure during the two leaders’ celebrated arrivals.

“Our people, when they rolled out the carpet for those two dignitaries, were on the news and photographed in the newspapers. We got a chance to see our people on television. That made it really exciting,” he said.

Usually, though, the arrival of foreign dignitaries occurs without quite so much pomp and circumstance. Last Monday’s arrival of the Princess of Thailand, Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, was more typical of the dozen or so red-carpet ceremonies staged each year at the airport.

After touching down, the princess’s private plane taxied to a small building on the Tarmac. The princess and her entourage quickly strolled across the outstretched carpet and were greeted by a representative from Mayor Tom Bradley’s office. Moments later, they sped off in a motorcade.

But there was, in fact, a wrinkle in the ceremony. Because of miscommunication with officials on the ground, the crew was expecting the princess about 100 feet from where her plane actually stopped. Mack’s experienced squad, however, hustled to the plane and successfully unfurled the runner to ensure the royal feet hit plush carpet rather than rough pavement.

Observing from the sidelines, Benson said the ceremony was pretty much routine, even though his group had made it in the nick of time. And that, it seems, is the real trick on the red-carpet detail: timing.

“You have to wait until the plane lands and then take the carpet up to the steps after they let the steps down,” Mack said. Otherwise, he explained, a jet blast could disrupt the carefully laid carpet, which would be simply unacceptable.

It may be just a ritual, but Benson says it’s important that it be done right.

“If I’m a foreign dignitary, and I come in and get the red-carpet treatment, it makes a positive and important first impression,” he said.

Assignment to the red-carpet crew is considered a prestigious detail among the 600 employees in the LAX maintenance department. For starters, candidates must have seniority and a good work record, Benson said.

Perhaps more important, “They have to be able to handle the media and the police without being flustered and aggravated,” Benson said. “And they have to handle changes on the spur of the moment.”

As long as anyone on the crew can remember, no esteemed visitor, not even much lampooned former President Gerald Ford, has stumbled, tripped or fallen on the stroll down the stately red carpet.

“We go to great lengths to prevent that,” Benson said. “One thing we don’t want to happen is to have a dignitary come in and be embarrassed by our carpet.”

The carpet itself is specifically designed for its purpose. It is fitted with special “reducers”--weights sewn on each side to keep the carpet flat, official-looking and accident-free.

The current carpet, put into use 18 months ago, replaced one that lasted for two decades.

“That old carpet was walked on many, many times,” Mack said. “This new carpet we got is pretty good. It should last a long time.”