MANAGEMENT IN AVIATION HISTORY BENCH MARKS
MILITARY AND CIVILIAN FEMALE ATCS America’s ATC system went into operation during 1936, but there are no records of female air traffi c controllers. Between 1942 and 1943, the U.S. Navy women accepted for volunteer emergency service (WAVES) stepped in to replace male ATCs who had left to join the military. Civilian female ATCs quickly followed. Although offi cial records are incomplete, Billie Gallagher, Martha Olson, Marcelline Price and Carolyn Lorenz are among those known to have eventually worked in the control tower and center at St. Louis. In addition, there are photographs and memorabilia of early female ATCs donated from private collections, as well as information from the National Air Traffi c Controllers Association (NATCA,) the Ninety-Nines organization and various military veterans research projects.
Mary VanScyoc, considered by many historians to be the fi rst female ATC in the U.S. Photo: South Central Chapter of the Ninety-Nines.
MARY CHANCE VANSCYOC According to the historian for the NATCA, Mary Chance VanScyoc began work at the Denver Airway Traffi c Control Center in Colorado in 1942. VanScyoc was a licensed pilot, then a requirement of the job. “Our instrument panel included an anemometer, barometer, a few phones, switches for runway lights and a mi- crophone. All transmissions from the airplanes were audible in the tower. We had no radar and no instrument land- ing system,” wrote VanScyoc of her job during 1944. From Denver, VanScyoc went to work at Wichita, KA, where
the airport was surrounded by factories building military aircraft, including drones, bombers and gliders. These kept the fi eld in constant use for test fl ights and deliveries. Fol- lowing her career in the towers, VanScyoc continued to fl y and teach school, often volunteering her time at the Kansas Aviation Museum.
ATC Marian McKenna (Russell). Photo: Russell Family.
MARIAN MCKENNA (RUSSELL) Marian McKenna’s family relates that she worked as a civilian employee in towers at Denver; Cheyenne, WY; and Wichita between 1942 and 1949. McKenna married a fellow ATC (becoming Marian Russell) with whom she had worked at all of these locations. In 1963, McKenna attended the NATCA meeting in Nashville, TN. During the festivities, McKenna, VanScyoc and Madelyn Brown Pert were honored as the CAA’s fi rst civilian female ATCs.
A B-24 can be seen through the windows of this female-operated tower during WWII. Photo: National Air Traffi c Controllers Association.
Elizabeth Mele operates a light gun on the job. Photo: International Women’s Air & Space Museum.
ELIZABETH MELE Elizabeth Mele earned her pilot’s license in 1943 and enlisted in the Women’s Army Air Corps (WAAC), working in the control tower at Bergstrom Field in Austin, TX. Mele attempted to join the Womens Air Service Pilots (WASP) but did not meet the physical height requirements. She immediately enrolled in the air traffi c school in Chicago, beginning a career that spanned decades. Mele was among the fi rst women certifi ed by the newly-formed FAA. She retired in 1990.
MARILYN ROBERTS (EARP) A military veterans research project for the University of North Carolina reveals one of the fi rst WAVES, Marilyn Roberts, who began in 1944 working as an ATC. Roberts was raised in Michigan where she and two sisters earned their pilot’s licenses. Roberts joined the Civil Air Patrol, then went on to basic training for the WAVES in New York, followed by ATC training in Atlanta. Before her discharge from the Navy in 1949, she met and married ATC Roger Earp while assigned to her ATC job in Illinois.
WOMEN WERE THERE Following the war, many women were again replaced by their male counterparts but some continued with their career during the transformation from the CAA to the FAA, which now designates various grades within its GS-2152 position for air traffi c controllers. In 1979, Jacqueline Smith (Burdette) and Sue Mosert
(Townsend) formed the Professional Women Controllers (PWC) organization which is now part of the NATCA. The NATCA now records that 15 percent of all ATCs in the U.S. are women.
Giacinta Bradley Koontz is an aviation historian, magazine columnist and author who has received the DAR History Medal and honorable mention from the New York Book Festival. She has appeared on the History Channel and in PBS documentaries. For more information, visit
www.GiaBKoontz.com.
03 2015 16
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