The meeting in Chicago went great. The hosting facility had our schedule jam-packed with many speakers, it was very informative but made for very long days. Here are some of the items we discussed:
Disaster Relief Fund (DRF)
The DRF has been a vital resource for NATCA members since 1992 after Hurricane Andrew. Originally founded to help with natural disasters, like hurricanes and tornadoes, they have been able to expand their reach and help with things like house fires and flooded basements. The DRF was on call and ready to assist members in our area in 2020 when the wildfires forced evacuations for many of us. HERE is the link to their page to learn more about what they do, but also, if you’re interested, they could use your help. You can donate time, resources, or money, all are greatly appreciated. Use the contact info on the link above to talk to someone about volunteering, or if you prefer a monetary option, click HERE to set up a payroll deduction. (Currently, three people at ZSE have a monthly donation set up, I’d love to see more!)
I wanted to separate this next point so it doesn’t get lost in the mix. It is really important that you keep your address up to date with NATCA. The Disaster Relief Committee has a program that overlays a map of any particular disaster with the addresses of all the members. Then they are able to target specific members to offer resources. Please ensure you address is correct on the myNATCA website or let us know, we can help too.
ABACUS
As many of you know, no ARTCC has ever had an accurate traffic count. They can do simple things like count airplanes, but it goes downhill quickly when you start trying to figure out things like military aircraft and complexity factors. The FAA and NATCA have been developing a program called ABACUS with the goal of accurately counting traffic. It is an extremely involved, highly technical program that, when tested, has about a 99.7% accuracy. They do not currently have ZSE scheduled for a test run, but it should be within the next year or two, this program is highly dependent on continuous funding. If you are interested in what goes into figuring out determining a facility level, it HERE in the contract. The section starts on page 232, but the formula specific to enroute starts on page 248.
Training
The national training rep gave an in-depth briefing on the happenings in the training world. The 3120.4 has an update coming out soon, the OJTI Cadre class (this is the one to certify people to teach OJTI class) schedule has been released, if that interests you, please let me know. There is one here in April, but more around the nation. The TRB class schedule also has been released.
Drug and Alcohol Committee (DAC)
Saliva testing has been approved, but DOT has no current plans to use it. They are waiting for other people to work through problems. There isn’t even a lab to process them.
There were so many more topics that we discussed, these were just the most useful for the general membership updates. We left there with a huge “to-do” list and have already started checking items off. Meetings like this make us stronger leaders and are a huge benefit to be able to share info between centers and not be on 20 individual islands.
Thank you,
Amy