Le Yankee Noir

A Courageous, Inspiring Story of Hope, Acceptance and Perseverance. In the global aviation industry, where building cross-cultural relationships is essential, cultural gaps and accepting others unlike ourselves remain issues. A veteran aerospace engineer with vast experience with inter-cultural bridge building, Samuel E. Pair has created a book that illuminates the value of acceptance and its influence on creating the climate for building trusting cross-cultural relationships. The culmination of a frustrating career journey - still healing after multiple rejections to his quest to enter a prominent management development program, an African American aerospace engineer is surprisingly summoned to the south of France in 1994 by French aircraft industry leaders. Tasked with managing the oversight of the recovery of a floundering new jet propulsion program for intensely anticipated jet liners, his reflection on the experiences of interacting with French and other nationalities on-site, explores the power of mutual acceptance and its influence on inspiring, motivating and propelling him through a myriad of formidable issues and a life threating condition. While ruminating about the significant events and consequential happenings during this twelve-year period, he is drawn to the factors that promoted his transformation, the ability to build relational bridges over cultural divides and contributed to his success. He shares them in this book.