The subject of women in air traffic control is dear to my heart for several reasons one of which is that I did play a small role in setting the scene for girls to be eventually accepted as ATC cadets in Hungary. The real achievement belongs to the ladies themselves who completed the fight but I do have fond memories of the first steps we took and which were anything but easy.
Anyway, with this background it was only natural that my blog should also take up the subject and it is with real pleasure that I noted just how much interest there is for it amongst you.
This time I would like to share with you some material kindly provided by one of our readers, Evon Russell, who is distinguished by being the daughter of one of the first women air traffic controllers while her dad was also a controller!
Her mom, Marian McKenna flew west several years ago and she was recently followed by another woman controller, Mary Elizabeth Chance VanScyoc who passed away on 9 February. These two ladies are special because they were the first and second female controllers in the US. It is commonly thought that Mary was the first but Marian often said to her daughter that she was in fact the first, even if the difference had only been a few days or weeks. I have no means to ascertain the facts and in a way this is probably not too important anyway. Or is it?
One of our readers commented some time ago that we should not spend time on who was first… but that the subject is not new is amply demonstrated by this 1993 letter sent by the Air Traffic Control Association to Marian asking her to help with identifying who was the first woman air traffic controller. Reading the letter you may notice that even when the term “woman” should be in plural, i.e. “women”, it is still spelled as singular. Not really relevant but still interesting…
But what gave rise to this letter? Looking at its envelope is revealing. The red inscription on the envelope advertises the ATCA Nashville event in October but the postmark is November of the same year, almost a month later… I guess it is safe to assume that at the reunion it was realized that they did not have a listing of those early hires and hence no record of the first woman controllers either. So they sent the letter…
Indications are that Marian never replied to the letter but it is a good bet she was not the only recipient after the reunion. Have the others replied? It would be so nice to know!
In the meantime, here is a photo of Marian, on the job in Denver… or is it Cheyenne? Cheyenne was her last assignment before she quit to get married. Her husband, also a controller, quit at the same time or soon after. They were married in Kansas City on 27 February, 1946, moving to Wichita in 1947 where Mr. Russell became a hardware salesman. Her daughter described him as something of a Renaissance fellow who had a varied career over his lifetime. Who said air traffic controllers were not versatile? Mr. Russell was from Kansas to begin with, Marian came from Missouri… Interestingly, they both worked as controllers at first in Wichita, then in Denver and finally in Cheyenne though Mr. Russell was always one station before Marian until she caught up with him in Cheyenne… in more ways then one apparently.
Marian’s nickname was “Mac” and she had a room mate and controller colleague nicked “Stack” derived from her name, Ruth Stackable McCalmont. Stack and Mac, that is how they addressed each other long after leaving the service.
But back to Nashville for a moment. In the report on the “Grand aviation reunion” below you will learn that both Mary and Marian attended and they were hailed, together with Madelyn Brown Pert, as the first civilian controllers at the CAA.
But this article is special also for another bit of information! Special recognition was being given to Stan Seltzer, Ed Barrow and Tom Hennessy for the work they did on developing “Positive Control” in 1953. As you may know, that work is in fact the foundation of modern air traffic control as we know it.
OK, let’s now jump to Denver… Look at this picture, made to commemorate the DARTCC’s first anniversary. See anything strange?
These days even the most misguided graphic of air traffic control will feature the radar screens prominently. Back at the time the DARTCC was one year old, huge flight progress boards dominated the picture and the lives of the controllers. Obviously though the two-letter name codes were already in use…
Marian is not among those shown but Mary VanScyoc is there towards the middle on the right hand side. Now flip the page and you find this on its back.
I guess all the ladies listed on this page were controllers, with the possible exception of Mary Morissy who is identified as secretary…
Still in Denver but 49 years later! The reunion for the DARTCC’s 50th anniversary in 1992… My absolute favourite is the banquet invitation with Mary’s phone number scrawled on top… I wonder what Marian was planning to discuss with her?
The price of the banquet was $12.50 per person… those good old days!
We are slowly coming to the end of this fascinating journey into the past and the beginnings of women controllers in the US. Let me give you one more photo, taken at the 1992 event.
Mary is in the black pants, Madeline Brown Pert is the tall blonde in the dark pink blazer, then Marian McKenna Russell, in the pink pants, and then Jeanne Lindberg in the blue pants and red top. The ladies whose names will be forever engraved in gold in US air traffic control history.
Excellent article.
Thank you Alex! I would love to write something like this also about lady pilots… May be someone will come forward with material from which a series of similar posts can be created.