David Neeleman, superstar

David Neeleman is not just a superstar because of his work as CEO of JetBlue. He is also a superstar missionary. If you’ve spent any time around go-go Wall Street types, the fact that David Neeleman has even talked to these people about the Gospel is a miracle in itself. And here is some evidence that he has actually helped baptize at least one family into the Church — all while running a hugely successful company. I am definitely not worthy.

(Hat tip to both T&S and BCC for linking this story).

The story is here. The key excerpts for me are below.

Neeleman leads his 800-strong local ward, not surprising given that proselytizing for the LDS Church is one of his great passions. According to his father, he is the most aggressive of his siblings when it comes to conversion. At the speech he gave to missionaries at Temple Square, the man who introduced him said he wouldn’t be surprised if Neeleman had Martha Stewart or Donald Trump in his sights, creating a vision of Wall Street suddenly awash with bishops and elders pursuing mammon with a renewed, Old Testament vigor.

While he won’t say how many folk on Wall Street he has converted—“plenty” is as far as he will go—Neeleman senses a demand for spiritual food in the high circles he travels in. “One friend of mine keeps buying stuff, a new Jag, a Humvee, a house by the water, but he says he has this hole he can’t fill. I tell him you’ll never be able to fill that hole unless you have spiritual guidance.”

Asked what he would do if he had to choose between running JetBlue and proselytizing, he says only, “I can do both. I don’t have to choose.”

Those who’ve said, “Yes” to the Mormon faith under Neeleman’s guidance since he moved to New Canaan include Wall Street lawyer Steven Waterman and his wife, Diane, who live near the Neelemans in Stepford Wife-country. Waterman, who has written opinions for the State of New York, describes himself as a “huge capitalist” before he converted. A Notre Dame graduate, he and Diane both hail from devout Catholic families and the rough-and-tumble industrial belt of New York state.

Eight months after converting, Waterman was diagnosed with renal cancer. “I was fighting for my life. I would have been dead by now if it weren’t for the church.”

Friends and colleagues, he says, cut him off after his diagnosis. He ended up setting up a new business on his own. “People don’t want to face their own mortality. But David really kicked in. He even came to my appointment with an oncologist at Sloan-Kettering [cancer center] at two in the afternoon. What other CEO would ever find the time?” This is an oft-repeated question among JetBlue staff. Neeleman’s stentorian personal assistant Carol Archer tells of how her boss spent several hours with her mother in a long-term care facility. Diane Smith lost her father recently. “For the three months after his death, he rang me every week to see how I was.”

What’s it like to be on the receiving end of David Neeleman—missionary? “He doesn’t try to debate substance with you” says Waterman. He leaves you to learn that yourself. He’s a very vividly relatable person. He loves to talk about scripture; his level of knowledge about Christ and the gospels is unparalleled. But he becomes your friend first. Whether he does that with everybody, I don’t know.”

Waterman dragged his wife to church, but she would have nothing to do with it until standing in the lobby one Sunday after a secular meeting, according to her husband, “she felt the Holy Spirit move through her like a bolt of lightning.” They were baptized the following day in Boston’s LDS Temple, Waterman by Neeleman, followed by Waterman’s baptism of his wife.

Waterman says that Neeleman has his work cut out for him in Connecticut. “Only 10 percent of the population in New Canaan goes to church on a regular basis. They are highly educated, materially wealthy and disdain religion.”

I’m not sure about that bit about being baptized in the temple. Otherwise, a very interesting bit of information.