March 19, 2019 There's More to Jerry Phan

The Liberty Gazette

March 19, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Last week we told you about Jerry Phan’s training in formation flying, which he bravely used to save a pilot and passengers one night when the worried pilot wasn’t sure whether his landing gear was working. That’s not all. Jerry lives for the opportunity to help.

He flies Angel Flights, using his own airplane to take people for medical care when the drive is too far, and flying on an airliner poses too much risk of infection.

He also works with FEMA. After Hurricane Harvey, he was the team leader for a language team and flew here to help Vietnamese Houstonians tread the murky waters of rescue and shelter. He engineered a plan for private flights and trucks to deliver supplies and created staging areas.

While he was here, he wrote, “Through rain, hail, and storms, regardless the task, we did what was asked of us and more. A cop, a construction manager, a teacher, a mechanic, a phone tech, a psychologist, and me, a pilot, intended two things: help as many as we can, and no matter how hard things got, it ain’t about us. One of the most valuable things on this mission was the ability to listen. To listen to a survivor as they cry their heart out. Who would have ever thought a screwball slacker pilot like me actually made a bit of difference. 45 days almost completed with FEMA. 8 days until home. Wish I could do more. Serving fellow Americans one hurricane at a time. Jerry Phan, Hurricane Harvey.”

Jerry loves to make people smile and laugh in their toughest times. But he clarified something for me. He doesn’t actually work for FEMA. He takes time off work to volunteer. Jerry designs and builds characters for TV and movies. I wondered, did he mean real live humans, or anime? No, he explained. Jim Henson Muppets.

Chewbacca is one of his designs, but he works on all of them. The Sesame Street Muppets are serviced regularly. Extra body parts are salvaged so new Muppets can be made quickly. Many Kermits and several Miss Piggys are built for any given scene. “Because,” Jerry explained, “you can’t stop filming to clean a Muppet.” They do get dirty, like when Oscar the Grouch surprises his co-stars with slime.

Jerry Phan and Kermit the Frog, Jim Henson Muppets.

Grover was my favorite, so Jerry shared this trivia: his eyes used to be yogurt spoons. He said, “Go to Pinkberry and look at a spoon. Cut off the handle. Then paint it white.”

With a love for humanity and a sense of humor, Jerry naturally wants to make someone’s day better. In those rough days after Harvey, he posted, “Tomorrow, I'm going home. I got to serve with some of the best people. We came from all over the United States. We boarded a bus to an Army base in the middle of nowhere, were processed, tagged and shipped out across the country. Who are we? Just ordinary Americans who proudly stood up and said two words: ‘Send me.’”

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