Delta grit: Meet the Red Coat making meaningful experiences in Boston

"I am very fortunate and very lucky to do what I do," said Nancy, whose hard work over 35 years evolved her role into that of a true customer experience ambassador. "My leaders trust me. They truly trust me and they rely on me, and I know that."

Nancy says her parents made her the person she is today, pushing her out of her comfort zone as a child to meet new people and travel to unfamiliar places. Her grandfather lived in Trinidad, dispatched there by the Queen of England to open the empire's first customs house there. The family traveled there every year to visit and expand their horizons, but Nancy recalled even the simple ways her parents pushed her to step outside of her comfort zone: One summer when someone moved in across the street, they told her: "Why don't you go over there and introduce yourself?"

Nancy embodies Delta resilience - what I like to call the "Delta grit" - something she clearly inherited from her mother. Nancy's dad died when she was young, but her mom did everything she could to ensure Nancy and her siblings experienced the world and graduated from college debt-free. "She was an old-school mom," Nancy said. "Everything was about her kids."

For Nancy, everything is about her colleagues and her customers. She's filled with fond stories of the ways she loves to pour into them. She partners with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and state and federal law enforcement to create special moments for children, and with Spalding Rehabilitation Hospital to provide airport tours to help patients feel more comfortable with air travel.

On one recent occasion, a woman asked for a place for her mother to lay down because she wasn't feeling well. Nancy persuaded the woman to get checked out by the paramedics before she boarded her flight. They recommended she go to the hospital.

"Ma'am, please make the right decision," Nancy recalled telling the woman. "That's when I turned to her daughter and said, 'Help me help your mother make the right decision.'"

Reluctantly, they agreed, with Nancy exchanging contact information and staying close to the family throughout a more than weeklong hospital stay. As it turns out, the customer had blood clots in her stomach, and doctors said she likely wouldn't have survived her flight home. But she made a full recovery, and Nancy was there to welcome the family for their trip home.

Nancy is full of energy, whether it's talking about how she takes the time to get to know and coach new hires, her favorite destinations across the globe (Bali, Italy, the South of France - "I still have more of this world to explore," she said) or even just her favorite on-board snack (like many of us, it's the iconic Biscoff cookie).

She sees the best in the world, the best in people and the best in what the future can bring. Nancy's grit came through again when I asked her about her favorite Delta memory. For her, it was our perseverance through the COVID-19 pandemic - the teamwork, the thoughtfulness, the generosity that kept Delta's culture alive. And she puts her all into keeping that culture going every day as new colleagues enter the fold.

"It's teaching them about the Delta culture and talking about it," Nancy said. "What it was like then, what it's like now, and what it can be like going forward."