Nevadan at Work: McCarran tower manager still enjoys ‘coolest job’

While tending to teletype machines in the United States Air Force, Jim Burgan was introduced to life in the control tower. He couldn't get enough.

"I though that had to be the coolest job there was," Burgan said.

After 29 years with the Federal Aviation Administration, including the past two as the air traffic manager for the control tower at McCarran International Airport, he hasn't changed his mind.

"I still can't think of too many things I would rather do," he said.

His only pangs of regret: As a manager, he no longer dons the headset and plays what is perhaps the world's largest chess game. The pieces move at hundreds of miles an hour and thousands of feet in the air, or roll along the ground slower than service trucks. Everyone should follow a certain sequence and keep a safe distance, but sometimes they have to abort landings or dodge thunderstorms.

"It's a very big picture," Burgan said. "When I was working radar, I would see a plane 60 miles away. When I knew where it fit in the sequence, that's when I knew I had gotten pretty good."

More than 90 percent of an airline flight is tracked by people in radar stations across the country. An airport tower takes over when the flight is within five miles of the runway. The tower is still the bastion of people who direct pilots based largely on what they see looking out the window.

Controllers often feast on disruptions, such as bad weather, as a chance to get the adrenaline gushing while creating solutions on the fly. As a manager, Burgan would rather have a boring work flow - the hallmark of a smooth-functioning system.

Current technology may look impressive, but controllers work with a navigation protocol that was developed in the 1920s, when pilots in goggles and leather helmets flew from bonfire to bonfire. Bit by bit, however, the FAA is installing a GPS-based system - components already govern some of the approach and landing patterns at McCarran - that could significantly change how airliners get from here to there, and how controllers guide them.

Question: You have switched positions about every three years, on average. Is that typical since the FAA is the only employer for air traffic controllers?

Answer: There are people who stay in one place their whole career and there are people who move around quite a bit, depending on what their desires are. It was my choice to move up into management because I thought I could make a change. The career option I am in requires you to move around to quite a few places.

Question: What change do you want to make as a manager?

Answer: Controller is still the best job in the agency, the most fun job in the agency. But I had a mentor who challenged me when I questioned something, (saying) 'Do you want to complain or be part of the change.' That's what drove me into management.

The big thing for us as far as change goes is culture. In a field like air traffic control, technology changes, equipment changes and people have to change to keep up with it. If you can get out there and set the example for folks, I think it goes a long way toward accepting change.

Question: Why is being up in the tower the most fun?

Answer: There's a lot of people that depend on those controllers every single day. The passengers are in the back relaxing in the airplanes, and there is somebody out there taking care of them. You buy a ticket and expect to get from Point A to Point B safely, and there is a man or woman in the tower that is doing it for you. That is the fun part, the self-satisfaction.

Question: Was it hard to quit working planes in 1997?

Answer: It was a withdrawal. There are times as a manager you go up and observe what is going on, you still imagine "this is what I would do," or "this is how I would do it" or maybe someone should do it a little quicker.

Question: Is Las Vegas a relatively easy assignment because of good weather, besides the wind, and uncrowded skies compared to a city like New York?

Answer: You don't have the typical weather you have back east, like thunderstorms or blizzards. But wind creates its own level of difficulty as well because wind drives the direction of the airport. When you see planes coming in from directions you don't normally see, generally it's generated by wind or the heat.

Vegas is tough because of the geometry of the airport (with runways intersecting at an angle).

Our rules don't allow airplanes to go at the same time, so they have to alternate. The ideal setup for an airport is to have parallel runways so they never conflict with each other. The planes can just go. When you work upstairs, you have to consider how your decisions over here affect what goes on over there, and vice versa. It's very complex.

Question: Is a controller a dictator?

Answer: I wouldn't use the word dictator. I would use more a director or conductor. They have the baton and say when the orchestra starts, who comes in and who comes out.

Question: In the role of conductors, do pilots lobby you for a better place in line?

Answer: They understand the system a little differently from their end. The more information you can give to them to help them understand why they are not going, it helps. We don't get pushed too much by pilots.

Question: Does it take a particular type of personality to make a good controller?

Answer: Definitely. It's a very multi-tasking type of field. You are constantly reviewing what your priorities are. Is it talk to the planes, answer the landline, make a keyboard entry. My experience is that you don't find people who do it just to do it. Either you like it a lot or you really don't.

It also requires a lot of teamwork. You rely quite a bit on the person sitting next to you to be successful.

Question: What marks the difference between a good day and a bad day for a controller?

Answer: I think the difference is what impacts the system, what keeps the system from being repetitious. I would say 80 percent of the time that has to do with weather. A lot of decisions are made like that (snap of the fingers). Sometimes you can have an unplanned event. When an airplane is cleared to land, you expect it to touch down. There are times it will get a gust of wind and go around. Especially when you are running operations on conflicting runways, like Las Vegas. It definitely requires a lot of adaptability.

I'm not sure "bad day" is the right term. Situations were you have to adapt, actually raise your adrenaline. It is said that controllers thrive on that. It's something they actually hope for because it takes them out of the routine.

When the stakes are high, the adrenaline pumps up and the controllers step up their game.

Question: Where were you on September 11?

Answer: I was assistant air traffic manager at Dallas-Fort Worth control tower. I remember getting ready to go to a staff meeting and hearing that a small airplane had run into the World Trade Center. Because I had worked in Teterboro (New Jersey), the first thought I had was, "There is no flight path over the city."

Shortly after that the second plane hit the tower. I don't know if a lot of people know it, but the controllers in the United States put down between 7,000 and 9,000 airplanes in about two-and-a-half hours. Phenomenal. It was pretty much find the closest airport and we will put you in. As I said before, the stakes were higher and they upped their game.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.