Roosevelt McLemore his sense of purpose when he deployed to Afghanistan with the Air Force’s 245th Air Traffic Control Squadron following the September 11th terrorist attacks.
"The relationships, the bonds I built with my comrades… we were like family," McLemore said. "The radar system we were supporting was helping our country move forward in its mission to fight terrorism at the time. Our work had a big impact on making sure things happened as safely as possible in that operation."
McLemore enlisted in the Army when he was 18 years old and later served in the Air Force. Now, with 31 years of military service, he leads Technical Operations training at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City.
He was one of the technicians in the Air Force who deployed in order to maintain a mobile radar system in Hungary and Afghanistan, which put U.S. fighter jets and transport aircraft on the scopes of U.S. military air traffic controllers who were supporting the mission.
He also deployed twice to Hungary as an Air National Guard senior airman in 1994 and 1996, during the U.S. military engagement in the Bosnian War. He has 15 military awards, including the Afghanistan Campaign Medal and the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal.
McLemore grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. He initially served in the Army Reserve out of high school for a few years as an administrative and legal clerk and then transitioned to the Army National Guard. While there, he began developing his technical skills by installing telephone lines that connected duty stations. This experience helped McLemore transition to the Air National Guard, where he later maintained and deployed mobile radar systems. He was a member of the South Carolina Air National Guard’s 169th Fighter Wing, stationed (close to where he grew up) at McEntire Joint National Guard Base in Hopkins, South Carolina.
McLemore joined the FAA in 1996 as an experienced radar technician, and later became a senior master sergeant in the Air National Guard before his retirement in 2016. He worked for the FAA out of Augusta Regional Airport, a small airport in Georgia that sees a massive spike in air traffic every April (for the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club). McLemore maintained radar, automation, and communication systems.
"Choosing at the FAA afforded me the opportunity to continue supporting the National Airspace System (NAS)," he says. "It also afforded me the opportunity to use my military skills and experience to serve in a different capacity. I’ve always been fascinated with how the NAS works, and here at the FAA, I get to see it from a civil servant’s perspective."
McLemore had been working in Tech Ops for about three years when one of his instructors at the FAA Academy said he’d be a great teacher, and asked him if he had thought about making the transition. "I hadn’t, and I was a little hesitant," McLemore said, "but that afforded me the opportunity to go on a detail at the FAA Academy. That’s how I really cut my teeth on becoming an instructor, and I’ve never looked back since."
McLemore trained FAA technicians for nine years and worked his way up to leading Technical Operations instructors. Now he serves by leading the ’Tech Ops’ Training Division. His mission is to ensure new airways transportation system specialists (technicians) and engineers receive proper training to maintain the NAS, just as he did. He is excited about recent developments at the FAA Academy, such as course updates, new virtual sessions, and exploring augmented reality as an interactive training tool.
In 2015, McLemore won the AFN Organizational Excellence Award for taking on multiple roles to accommodate critical vacancies on his technical training team. He led efforts to identify ways to make up for a nearly $2 million budget cut by encouraging employees to develop creative suggestions for providing training.
"For me, working for the FAA has parallels of serving in the military," McLemore said. He continued, "We’re ensuring that the American public feels safe when flying and traveling. As with serving in the military, it’s all about being part of a greater cause to ensure the NAS is operating every single second of the day in a safe manner."
