Got a Question

[Wade Stillwell 811099]

Is it ok for a VATUSA Headquarters Staff member to be a staff member of an ARTCC or is that a conflict of intrest? I mean hold the position of ATM,DATM,orTA.

[Bryan Wollenberg 810243]

I personally feel that it would be a huge conflict of interest, however, the only people explicitly prohibited from doing such by the CoR (if memory serves me correctly, without opening it up for a quick read) are the BoG. BoG members may not hold any other position on the network.

[Andrew Podner 994055]

To sort of echo Bryan's comments I think it is situation dependent. For example:

 

VATUSA1, 7, 8, and 10 should not be ATMs or DATMs

VATUSA3 should not be a TA

VATUSA4 should be completely neutral and hold no other positions

VATUSA9's position is not related to ARTCC operations at all.

VATUSA 5, 6, 11 are not directly involved in ARTCC issues most of the time, and if they felt they they had the time, I wouldn't see a problem with that.

 

One complaint that circulates amongst the network frequently is that staff members tend to be aloof and unplugged from what is going on 'in the trenches' so to speak. If we enforced an idea that USA staff cannot participate in any way other than a division staff member and controller/pilot, then this contributes to the problem, in my view. If that were to be the measure of how the division is run, then I would have to say that we could never hire an ATM, DATM, mentor, I1 or I3 onto USA staff because all that has been done is to take an instructor or good staff member out of ARTCC operations, and cause a disruption there, which is needless and senseless in its concept. SUPs, who have access to a whole other set of information are not barred from being in staff postions. Likewise, we do not preclude people from serving concurrently on VA staff and Controller related staff, so the premise itself cannot be evenly applied across the board anyway, which makes it subjective and unfair by its nature. Why restrict someone from making a contribution?

 

There is a common misconception that being a USA staff member is an all-encomp[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing, life altering, time intensive commitment. I am telling you first hand, this is not true. I am sure it is probably true at the Regional level and/or BoG level. Are there things to do here? Sure. Do people have needs to that have to be attended to? Absolutely. But the major issues that face us pretty much all have a higher echelon dependency that we have to wait for decisions to be made and policies developed. The workload of the Division is spread across 10 people, and this is done specifically to keep the staff duties from taking over their lives. I would encourage staff members to stay involved, stay plugged in, and help when you are asked to help. That is what we are here to do.

 

In the situation you are referring to specifically, VATUSA staff was asked to manage the ARTCC's training department by the ATM for the purposes of developing new training materials, airspace procedures and make the upcoming transition into GRP2, essentially it will be a ground-up overhaul......so training staff positions are being filled by USA Staff on an interim basis until such time as the overhaul is completed and a suitable staff position replacement is found, which is at the discretion of the Air Traffic Manager. We are not in the business of inserting ourselves into an ARTCC, but are more than happy to [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ist when asked and invited, and that offer is open to every ARTCC, subject to the constraints of time and availability obviously.

 

Regards,