Captain ABA

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Last year's Hero Logistics pilot extraordinaire was not Jose Zampano, as some less informed people have claimed, but rather Devlin Shardo. I know Jose was just as confused by this as anyone. But after Jose made the decision to abandon us for the greener pastures of NCdot, Devlin courageously accepted the challenge to step into the FC role for our AT run this year. For anyone that has been in the AT before well knows, this is not an easy role to take on.

It is a tremendous amount of pressure, stress, and time-demanding work to have to shoulder. Varying parts of those burdens can be lessened depending on the team around you, and I think we all try to do that as much as we can. Our team this year is very experienced and knows what needs to be done. But, even so, there is no avoiding the responsibility of leadership on the battlefield. And as our FC, Devlin has made incredible progress this year. Frankly, I could not possibly be more proud of him and the work he has done. And that is not "spin" or "meta" or anything other than the truth. I know everyone on our team feels the same way.

My job every year is to support, encourage, and mentor our Fleet Commander and help them build a successful team. Which just so happens to be a big part of my real life job as well. Jose is not Devlin, and Devlin is not Jose of course. So the details about how that works tend to change every year. A lot of which has to do with each person's personality and acceptance of help. My intention here is not to compare FCs because that would be ludicrous. They are different people, the team is different, the situation and rules are different. Comparisons are for idiots. I'm sorry that Jose felt the need to leave us, but I'm also extremely pleased that Devlin is now our FC.

Last year after the first weekend I posted an image of Jose as Mad Max, so this year I wanted to do something similar for Devlin. He has worked his ass off this year and deserves the attention.

Go ABA!