Model of persistence.

Byline: The Register-Guard

If at first you don't succeed, then try, try, try, try, try and, yes, try again.

It took a total of six tries, including one close brush with death, for Steve Fossett to become the first person to fly around the world solo in a hot air balloon. This 58-year-old multimillionaire is definitely a guy who knows the meaning of the word perseverance.

After spending 13 days floating six miles above the Earth's surface in an unpressurized gondola dangling from a giant silver balloon, Fossett finally succeeded last week. At 6:40 a.m. PDT, he drifted over Kalgoorlie, Australia, completing a full circle of 19,428.6 miles from the point where he embarked.

Discouraged and vision-weary souls in search of hope and inspiration need look no further than Fossett. A former Eagle Scout who started his own securities firm, he swam the English Channel in 1986 after failing three times , and he finished (OK, he was 47th but who's complaining?) the 1,160 mile Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska after earlier failing to finish the race.

There was also that Le Mans car race that Fossett finished in 1996 ... but you get the idea. This is a guy who doesn't know the meaning of the word quit.

As Joe Ritchie, mission control director for the balloon trip, observed, the question was not if Fossett would make it around the globe, but when. ``When he sets a goal, he keeps putting one foot in front of the other until he gets there," Ritchie said.

Fossett's feat probably won't go down on the list of the most meaningful human breakthroughs. He won't be mentioned in the same breath as a Charles Lindbergh or an Edmund Hillary. But he displayed remarkable tenacity, courage, resolve - and an ability to learn from past mistakes -in pursuing and achieving a goal that no one else in the world had reached.

Fossett isn't done yet. Next, he wants to fly a glider into the stratosphere above 60,000 feet. No matter what the oddsmakers say, we wouldn't recommend betting against him.