Starting the Blog with background information

How's it going?
I decided to use this site rather than myspace so that it can be made public without the annoyances and junk mail.

A little background information:
I live in a burb of Milwaukee with my cousin/roommate
I work fulltime for a private security company 3rd shift
I work part-time for Air Wisconsin Airlines who ground handles for United Airlines
I have a wonderful girlfriend who lives in Chicago.

I recently have been pursuing a career change and have chose the path of what I once thought to be my dream job if I wasn't going into law enforcement. That career is with the Federal Aviation Administration as an air traffic control specialist.

This dream started becoming a reality on a rainy Wednesday night on the 2nd of May in 2007. Upon arriving to work I got on the computer and out of fate or a stroke of boredom logged onto the FAA job website. I saw a position that was marked "Air Traffic Control Specialist - Public". I opened the link and read the requirements. My heart began to race because after a quick review I had the qualifications to apply for the position. However, the posting close date was May 2nd 2007 at midnight. I worked as quickly as possible filling out all the required information and completed it by the midnight deadline.

Months went by without any updates on the website. I pretty much put applying for the position out of my mind and continued to live week to week. In the meantime I obtained a second job with Air Wisconsin as a Customer Service Agent. I took a 2 trips to Boston on my free flight benefits. (The second trip was the most fun). I bought a newer car (2006 Ford Mustang), and moved to Cudahy. It was around that time I got the letter.
In mid-September I received a letter from Robinson Aviation (an FAA contractor) stating that I had been selected to take the AT-SAT test. This was the aptitude test for the air traffic control position which I applied for back in May. I was to report to the Highlander Inn located in Manchester, NH on October 1st at 7am. Thankfully I was working for Air Wisconsin and had those flight benefits. I was able to fly from Milwaukee to Philadelphia on to Manchester for free to take the test.

Once in Manchester and the weeks leading up to my trip I was nervous. I didn't know what to expect. I decided to do some research and see what this test was all about. I found a summary of the test on a website which is made up of others like myself trying to get hired as an ATCer. I had an idea what was going to be on this test, but being an aptitude test you really can't study for it. My biggest fear was the math portion.

While taking the test I kept calling my girlfriend during the breaks to vent and to get some moral support. At that point I'm not sure who was hoping I would do well more... her or me. I crashed a few planes in the simulator portion of the exam which left me with a feeling that I didn't do so well.

2 weeks after taking the AT-SAT after checking the FAA ASAP site (which has the status of my application) daily, sometimes more my hope was starting to dwindle. On 10/17/2007 I logged into the site and was very excited to see that I obtained a passing and qualified score.
Months passed, no new news on the next step of the process until I obtained several emails from the FAA stating that I had been placed on the referral list for Manchster,NH Tower, Boston Center, Bangor,ME Air Traffic Control Tower/Terminal RAdar CONtrol, and Portland, ME ATCT/TRACON. At that time I had to rank my preference for each of the facilities. I had to fill out some paperwork and fax it into the FAA.
I
ts January, anticipation is building to see if this dream was going to take a step closer to coming true. I received several emails in that month. One stating that all my paperwork and file have been transferred over to the Aviation Careers Division within the FAA for further processing. I also got the email I thought I would never get. I had been selected for an interview with the FAA and to accommodate me they were going to set it up at the Milwaukee ATCT/TRACON. The Aviation Careers Division didn't give me a date for the interview just "3-4 weeks".

Now we are in the present! I received a phone call on Friday January 25th at 4:50pm the message on the machine was from the Air Traffic Manager at Milwaukee with her number to set up a date and a time for my interview. Upon receiving the message I called her on her cell phone and we agreed on Thursday Jan 31st at 11am. I am on cloud nine. I am getting a chance to sell myself as an average joe with limited aviation experience and no formal training at an approved FAA Controller Training college for a job pushing tin with the FAA. My first thought was.... I have nothing to wear to the interview. I again consulted the website which has been so helpful in this whole process and got some fantastic feedback from others who had taken the interview earlier in the year. I was afraid I would have to buy a suit, but that wasn't the case. Others before me had gone in a nice shirt, khakis and a tie. I headed out to the Men's Warehouse and got just that.

Interview Day! The day did not start out as planned. I worked 3rd shift the night before the interview and was exhausted when I got home at 7am. I thought I would lay down and take a short nap. I had my phone set to vibrate instead of alarm only and it didn't go off when I wanted it to.... or I snoozed it... either way I woke up 20min before I had to be there. I scrambled, jumped in the shower very quickly, got dressed and couldn't find my dress shoes.... that was until I remembered that they were in the trunk of my car. I bolted out the door. Luckily I only live 15min from the airport under "normal driving conditions". I care not to disclose how I got there in 5min but I got there nonetheless. As I was being let in the front door the Air Traffic
Manager was just walking out of a meeting. Talk about being RIGHT on time.
I introduced myself to the Air Traffic Manager and her assistant who was also hired of the street during the 1981 PATCO strike. We got started by talking about which facility I had been chosen for. I had assumed since the referral list that I would be going to Bangor and feared going to Boston Center (the enroute facility that works traffic that has already departed the airport and is enroute at high altitude). She told me I had been selected for Portland Jetport ATCT/TRACON (PWM). We briefly discussed my feelings about really wanting to come to a place like Milwaukee. She said I could come to Milwaukee but I would have to turn down the Portland position, wait a few more months and then get selected for Milwaukee. She couldn't put that in writing which made me feel uneasy about taking a risk like that. Anyhow, it was a basic interview with no ATC related questions. At the end I requested a tour and got a chance to get a very brief feel for how Milwaukee operates. I did a tour once before which I mentioned in the interview not much has changed. At the conclusion of the interview I was advised that she needed to send an evaluation on the interview to the Aviation Careers Division at which time I would receive my tentative offer of employment. I was and still am ecstatic! I am one step closer to my dream job. All I have left is a 2nd class Medical, psychological, and background investigation for security clearance.

The hard part of knowing where I am going now is being faced with several hard decisions. I will have to move away from family, I may have to find my cousin a roommate for the rest of the lease pending my Oklahoma City start date, how to pay my bills when I'm only making $8/hr + per deim for 3 months at OKC. The hardest thing though is going to be this weekend when I formally sit down with my girlfriend explain what has happened, what's next in the process, and the fact that moving to Maine is starting to become a reality rather than a "what if".
Until my next post, it will be business as usual....... trying not to get my hopes up and take each step, one step at a time.