Years before he became a household name, former airline pilot Capt. Sully Sullenberger recalled a nondescript flight to Charlotte one late night. All the passengers had filed off the plane except for one, who needed wheelchair assistance.

Sully looked for the attendant who was supposed to meet the passenger but they were nowhere to be found. That’s when he took over. He went out into the terminal, found a wheelchair and brought it back to the passenger. “My thought processes were simple that night,” “I was thinking, ‘I’ve gotten you this far, I need to help you finish the journey.’”

He shared the story with about 1,500 people at Tanger Center at Thursday night’s opening of the Guilford College Bryan Series season, saying it’s those small moments in life that, taken in sum, form our reputation years later.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but my reputation was going to be built one interaction, one person, one day at a time,” Sully said. “That’s true for each of our lives. In every encounter with another person we have the inherent opportunity for good, for ill, or indifference. We just have to choose which one that will be.”

Sully spoke to the Bryan Series audience of community members, faculty, staff and students about a number of topics – including character, resiliency and technology – but mostly he spoke of the now famous US Airways Flight 1549. On Jan. 15, 2009, along with first officer Jeff Skiles deftly and calmly landed the airliner on the Hudson River minutes after takeoff from New York’s LaGuardia Airport when the plane hit a flock of Canadian geese, disabling its two engines.

The water landing saved the lives of all 155 passengers and crew onboard and is forever known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.”

Even now, 14 years later, Sully recounts with vivid detail the events of the flight that lasted less than 300 seconds. The thump-thump-thump of geese smashing into the engines. The eerie silence of both engines shutting down. The Hudson River that was quickly filling his cockpit window.

Sully, who had logged more than 20,000 hours flying over 42 years,  said the flight was “completely routine and unremarkable ... for the first 100 seconds. And then it suddenly, shockingly became our ultimate challenge.”

Even after landing the plane in the chilly waters, Sully maintained his calm, going through the aircraft twice to make sure every passenger made it out. He was the last person to exit the plane only after a flight attendant insisted he leave.

Sully said he’s spent a lifetime always trying to improve how he does his job – as a pilot and more recently in his new role as ambassador to the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization. He says that the ethos of always improving oneself was instilled in him by his parents.

I was fortunate to grow up in a family that encouraged me and challenged me to learn and grow throughout my life,” he said. “What I encourage others to do is to never stop investing in yourselves and never stop learning and never stop growing professionally or personally.

“As the pace of change globally only accelerates, most of us cannot get through a professional lifetime with only a single skill set. We must keep on learning and growing, stretching ourselves, sometimes reinventing ourselves. I certainly have.”

Sully was the first of five Bryan Series speakers for the series’ 19th subscription season.

Producer and screenwriter Walter Parkes speaks on Oct. 12 followed by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Lynsey Addario (Nov. 9) Space Shuttle commander and NASA administrator Charles Bolden (Feb. 8) and news anchor and journalist Judy Woodruff (April 9).

Tickets for all Bryan Series talks can be purchased online through the Tanger Center or in person during the Tanger box office 12 - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.