Anyone who has lived nine decades probably has a good story to tell, but Al Higdon’s is particularly packed.
From a high-flying career in public relations in the early days of jets to starting his own ad agency, Higdon was Wichita’s original Mad Man. His former employer, Learjet, even was a story line on the “Mad Men” television series.
His good friend of 50 years, Linda Talbott, convinced him to tell his story.
“I just see me as a guy who’s gone to work and worked and retired, and here I am,” said Higdon, a former board member of The Active Age.
Talbott, though, “felt that there is something there,” he said.
“Al Higdon: The Power of Two” has just hit bookstores. Higdon asked his friend John Brown to write the book instead of attempting it on his own.
Brown “did as good of a job as could be done on this old, tired life,” Higdon said.
The native of Kansas City, Mo., moved to Wichita while in high school, when his father took a job here.
Higdon decided he wanted to be a sports writer “because I liked sports, and I had some flair for writing.”
That and he was “lousy at math” and other skills he figured he’d need in business.
Higdon ended up studying what he said was then a fairly new profession: public relations.
He got a business degree from the University of Kansas in 1958 and went to work for a small PR consulting firm in St. Louis.
Feeling like he needed more of a writing background and study of PR, Higdon returned to Wichita and got a journalism degree from Wichita State University.
From there, he joined the PR department at Beech for three years before jumping to Learjet in 1964.
“There was some soul searching,” Higdon said.
His concern was that a Learjet plane might not “ever see the light of day, let alone be successful.”
Working for the legendary Bill Lear was an experience.
“He was irascible. He was smart as hell. . . . He was a visionary. I’ve never met anybody like him.”
Even when Lear was a mere 53, Higdon said, “Everybody called him ‘the old man.’ “
The business was successful, of course, and Higdon remained until 1971.
He called that time “seven of the best years of my life that I wouldn’t want to go through again.”
One-year trial
Higdon left Learjet to form an ad agency with Wendell Sullivan.
“The aircraft industry was in serious doldrums.”
Higdon said there were bumper stickers back then that said, “Will the last one out of Wichita please turn out the lights?”
Higdon and Sullivan were no more confident that the agency would be a success.
“We gave ourselves a year.”
Higdon ended up continuing to work for Learjet, too, on a contract basis, from 1972 to 1985.
Then, in 1987, the agency took on part of Cessna Aircraft Co.’s PR work, “which was the beginning of a whole new, wonderful chapter for us.”
By 1988, the agency began handling Cessna’s worldwide account, which previously had been with an international agency. Cessna was the firm’s largest client for a long time and “was the best client in the history of the agency,” Higdon said.
Beginning with Cessna CEO Russ Meyer, the company allowed the agency access to every aspect of its business, “which allowed us to do our work much better,” Higdon said. “If more clients knew how to work with agencies, they would know how to get the best work out of them.”
Higdon attributes his time in “that jet age” to “blind luck and being on the ground floor.”
“I was a player in that, the emergence of the industry in Wichita.”
He’s equally proud, though, of how he and Sullivan established a profit-sharing plan for their agency, which became Sullivan Higdon & Sink when Vaughn Sink became a partner.
Sullivan and Higdon previously had hired Sink when they got their first agriculture client.
“Both of us were city guys,” Higdon said of himself and Sullivan. “We didn’t know a damn thing about agriculture, but I knew who did.”
Higdon said the agency, today known as Signal Theory, successfully changed with the times, and he appreciates how current leaders keep him up to date on what’s happening. They even named their custom AI tool AL after Higdon.
In the book, Higdon also shares stories of difficult times, including the death of Sullivan and layoffs during a recession.
Higdon will have a book signing at 6 p.m. on Jan. 15 at Watermark Books & Cafe.
“I’m reminded constantly what a lucky lad I’ve been throughout my whole life to be in the right place at the right time,” Higdon said. “I’m just a blessed human being.”
