On Tuesday, May 18, 2023, the Aeronautical Center held the annual MMAC Town Hall to celebrate its accomplishments, share exciting updates, and highlight collaborative efforts. The theme this year was "Building the Foundation of Safety Today for Tomorrow’s Technologies." The event provided insights to the Center’s operations, sustainability initiatives, facility renovations, and contributions to aviation safety. Due to the positive responses from the last Town Hall, the Center’s leadership continued to expand the topics and guest speakers to provide a more comprehensive update on activities and programs occurring across the Center.
Since our last Townhall, we’ve seen our entrance gate counts steadily climb with an average of over 4,000 employees per day working on site throughout the week; and then towards the middle of the week, we are experiencing an average of over 5,000 employees each day. So, we know that whether our employees are working from home or on the Center, we are seeing great innovation, progress and results.
During the Town Hall, Michelle Coppedge, Director of the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, emphasized the importance of maintaining operational excellence. The Center has successfully implemented a hybrid work environment while experiencing increased demand and operational activities. The FAA Academy has also been ramping up training efforts, and the Flight Program Operations area has received new aircraft for retrofitting.
For example, the FAA Academy has been steadily ramping up more technical training, which in turn is increasing the number of students on the Center. There has been significant innovation going on in how the processes are performed by the FAA’s Registry, resulting in decreased processing times for registration of aircraft. In the Flight Program Operations area, new aircraft have been received and are being retrofitted to enable more efficient flight inspection operations. These are just a few examples of incredible, innovative work going on by the men and women who work at the Aeronautical Center.
Thanks to both the great work employees have been accomplishing, as well as the criticality of functions being performed at the Center, there has been a lot of interest from external stakeholders coming to the Center to learn about what you do.
Just since our last Town Hall, we have had congressional visits from Senator Lankford and Congressman Cole, Congressman Lucas, and Congresswoman Bice, as well as the House Transportation & Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee Staff. We have also had a lot of interest at the state level as well. We recently hosted State Senators John Haste and Jerry Alvord and the State Director of the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission, Grayson Ardies, as well as the Choctaw Nation Tribal Council for various visits and meetings. Everyone’s work at the Center has attracted a lot of attention from executives across the DOT and FAA as well, with Victoria Wassmer, Joe Jarrin, as well as Marc Nichols and Jeffrey Vincent spending time at the Center.
Just over a month ago, we were honored to also Host Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, for a visit, along with Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and OKC Mayor David Holt. They were able to spend some time learning about Air Traffic Control training and even got miked up and in the Tower simulation lab and visited an on-going enroute labs class in the Academy, culminating the visit with an engaging and interactive town hall with employees and students.
Hosting visits to the Center are important, as we use this time to get the word out about the incredible functions employees perform and to enlighten others on the “value” of these functions to make sure they are known and understood. These visits help us to build new collaborations and create strategic partnerships.
Hosting visits to the Center are important, as we use this time to get the word out about the incredible functions employees perform and to enlighten others on the “value” of these functions to make sure they are known and understood. These visits help us to build new collaborations and create strategic partnerships.
One of the quotes that Secretary Pete made after his March visit talked about “Our ability to keep up after COVID and what it did to our training pipeline, which by the way is one more example why what you all do here at this facility is a matter of national interest and even presidential concern.”
We are proud of the numerous accomplishments across the Center and the operations that each and every employee performs, are vital to the flying public. Over the past 76 years of the Aeronautical Center’s years of operations, the U.S. has earned the reputation of being the safest airspace system in the world and we are laser focused on sustaining today’s operations to maintain this reputation.
Simultaneously, the Center is also leaning forward, working with partners to create bold relationships that help build the foundation today for tomorrow’s technologies, around initiatives such “Advanced Air Mobility (or AAM), and Commercial Space Transportation, and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).”
Many of you should be aware by now that one of the top priorities for this Administration is Sustainability. The Aeronautical Center has emerged as a leader in sustainability initiatives across the Department of Transportation (DOT). Last fall, we conducted a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Solar Array Farm Project located at the far southwest end of the Center. Once completed, this Solar Array Farm will be the largest across the DOT. Since the groundbreaking ceremony, a contract was awarded and the solar panels, transformers and other equipment is being procured to begin installation. Additionally, the Center is actively engaged in the construction of sustainable buildings, with plans to achieve its 18th certified sustainable building in FY24.
Phil McNamara, the Assistant Secretary for the Administration of DOT, sent a video that shared the importance of what this work means to the DOT and across the entire agency that was played during the Town Hall.
The Multi-Purpose Building (MPB) renovation, a significant project at the Aeronautical Center, is nearing completion. The building will house the Enterprise Services Center (ESC) and has garnered positive feedback for its well-lit, sustainable, and modern architectural design.
The dedication and hard work of Aeronautical Center employees has not gone unnoticed. Several teams encompassing members from AMP and AJF were honored with the Designated Agency Safety and Health Official (DASHO) Awards for their contributions to safety culture, emergency response efforts, workplace safety training, and corporate training solutions. These recognitions reflect the Center’s commitment to maintaining a safe working environment.
In recent months, all of you have heard about Acting Administrator Billy Nolen’s call to establish an independent safety review team following several near collisions of commercial aircraft in the U.S. Among the issues being faced, is a significant understaffing problem of air traffic controllers. The FAA Academy shut down air traffic control training for 4 months, and the field ATC training was shut down for 9 months. With the pause in training and attrition nationwide, only 90% of the air traffic control positions are currently filled. The Aeronautical Center is playing a huge role in helping address these issues.
On May 8th, a TRACK 1 announcement, to hire new Air Traffic Control students closed and yielded 12,748 applicants, with 89.3% of the applicants being system qualified. Prior to this announcement, teams from the Enterprise Services Center and AIT’s Office of Information Technology worked side-by-side to make numerous improvements to a system called AVIATOR. It’s a web-based system that applicants for ATC positions get routed to from USA Jobs. The work to make enhancements on this system was tremendous and created the capability for a much higher volume capacity of customers than the prior 2022 hiring announcement.
On top of this work, the Office of Human Resources (AHR) and the FAA’s Office of Communications (AOC) has worked tirelessly to make improvements on the announcement process and subsequent communications, so we can reach a vast number of qualified and diverse candidates for the positions in a timelier manner.
The FAA Academy and the AJI Safety & Technical Training (AJI), have been working closely together to ramp up the number of instructors and staff to support a much higher training load of 1,500 new hire ATC students taking classes at the FAA Academy this year. This is an increase from 1,200 last year and requirements are increasing to 1,800 students per year starting in October for FY24. Tracey Johnson, the Acting Vice President of Safety and Technical Training shared a message about the collaborative work happening across the Center to meet these needs.
Jim Linney, who was recently named as the Acting Deputy Vice President of Technical Operations Services joined the Town Hall live and spoke about the important collaborative work being led by Tech Ops, in partnership with multiple organizations across the Center. We were thrilled to have one of his leader’s, driving many of the changes using Unmanned Aerial Systems for inspections and testing across our National Airspace System, Eli Velazquez, Manager of the UAS Operations Team in AJW-1240 speak about his leading edge work in this area.
Doug Rodzon, Program Manager of the AFS Flight Research and Analysis team at the MMAC also spoke during the Town Hall about a recent simulation his team completed with NASA and the William J. Hughes Technical Center (WJHTC) that supports these new technologies such as sUAS and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM).
The research is not only in the air, because the MMAC has a new state of the art facility under construction that will provide critical research for operations in water. Dr. Melchor Antunano, the Director of the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) shared the latest plans on the new WiWaves facility expected to be complete by March of 2024.
The Center continues to solidify its position as a critical hub within the aviation industry. With a strong commitment to excellence, the Aeronautical Center strives to maintain the highest standards of safety, operational efficiency, and sustainability for the benefit of the National Airspace System.
