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On the Cover Marine Air Traffic Controllers of MCAS Cherry ATC Facility, November 2016.

ATC Facility Officer – Maj Jose R. Hernandez

SNCOIC – MSgt Chad E. Dent

Training Chief – GySgt Louie S. Cruz

Tower Chief – SSgt Joshua J. Hall

Radar Chief – SSgt Matthew H. Hartka

Writer/Editor – Joseph G. Hendrickson

Table of Contents

From The Point 3

Training 5

To the Point 6

Crossword 7

This quarterly newsletter is published solely by the Editor and does not imply any consent, approval or endorsement

by the ATCFO or the commander of MCAS Cherry Point.

WWW.CHERRYPOINTATC.COM

Jan 2017

Tower Chief Turnover For the second time this year, the Tower Chief position has been vacated by transferring controllers. Due to his imminent departure from the Marine Corps, SSgt Marquest A. Smith relinquished his command of the Tower Branch to SSgt Joshua J. Hall on 1 Dec 2016. SSgt Smith completed just over 6 months in his billet, documenting nearly 3,000 hours of training and 49 position qualifications.

Doug Marshall Returns On 3 Oct 2016, Douglas P. Marshall began his second term at Cherry Point as a civilian controller in the tower branch. His last tour ended on 5 Aug 2010 after spending nearly seven years here with one stint at MACS-2 during OIF. He was previously qualified on RD, FC, Approach West and throughout the tower.

ATC Places in All-Terrain Challenge Congratulations to our team, “El Jose Hernandez” in the Marine Special Operations Command all-terrain unit competition that was held on 28 Oct 2016 at MCAS Cherry Point at the Hancock Marina. Our team name was named after our ATCFO, who is filled with loyalty, trust, grit, and a stomach for top shelf Tequila, Hoorah! The race was a 6 mile relay with obstacles, a scavenger hunt, and worst of all extremely aggressive fast moving ZOMBIES (Marine volunteers with face painted.) In a highly competitive event with over 20 teams of stiff competition, “El Jose Hernandez” placed third to receive a beautiful trophy, $100.00, small fitting shirts, and medals to take home. The following Marines represented, ATC during the event: Capt Dewey, MSgt Dent, GySgt Cruz, Sgt Mondloch, Cpl Pineiro, Cpl Stoll, Cpl Doherty, LCpl Zamora, LCpl Taylor, and LCpl Greening.

AOV Credential Program Begins On 5 Dec 2016, Maj Hernandez became the first Marine to be assigned a credential number (161200135) as part of the new Aviation Oversight (AOV) Credentialing System. Under the guidance of MGySgt Tom Draffen (APX-81), all Marine and civilian controllers were entered according to their ratings for Tower, Arrival and Approach. Those without ratings were given an apprentice status.

Sgt Boti Receives Award On October 16, 2016, Sgt Derek C. Boti was awarded the Lingiam Odems Memorial Award for Air Traffic Control Specialist of the Military during the 61st ATCA Annual Conference & Exposition in National Harbor, Maryland.

Trainer of the Year 2016 Brandon Mack has been selected as the MCAS Cherry Point Trainer of the Year. He previously trained here as a Marine in 2010 and then returned to the facility as a civilian tower controller in June 2015. He was on pace to possibly break the 1-year record (762), peaking at 101 hours in the month of June alone, but holidays and trainee availability affected the last three months . He finished the year with 687 hours of OJT and 75 hours of simulation training, substantially helping his crew win Crew of the Year.

Controller of the Quarter Cpl Marcus A. Beacham has been awarded the Controller of the Quarter for the 4th quarter of 2016. During the quarter, Cpl Beacham had the hightest combined total of 103 hours as a trainee, 27 hours as an instructor and 8 hours in the classroom. He is over half way through his training on Local Control and was meritoriously promoted to his present rank during the quarter.

Top Five Civilian OJT Instructors Brandon M. Mack 687.22 Michael T. Seabrook 521.78 Judson W. Woodard 512.95 John M. Holbrook 482.78 Christopher J. Sharpe 408.17

Top Five Marine OJT Instructors Sgt Jonte N. Allen 286.72 Sgt Derek C. Boti 283.77 Sgt Matthew A. Hollingsworth 283.38 Sgt Francis M. Finch 252.50 Cpl Mark A. Knudtson 241.63

Top Five Simulator Instructors Sgt Benjamin Bonilla 103.08 Daniel J. McIlhenny 77.57 Brandon M. Mack 75.17 Sgt Derek C. Boti 64.37 Cpl Samuel R. Klaiber 48.57

Top Five Trainees (OJT+Simulation Hours) Jill L. Adair 443.23 Cpl Samuel R. Klaiber 434.22 Sgt Jimmy L. Wurtsmith 428.50 Cpl Robert L. Eden 383.87 LCpl Jacob S. Greening 354.77

TRACON and Facility Ratings GySgt Louie S. Cruz 2 Feb 16 Facility Sgt Francis M. Finch 18 Feb 16 Facility Sgt Devin C. Haydel 19 Mar 16 Facility Cpl Justin D. McDaniel 2 Jun 16 TRACON SSgt Joshua J. Hall 24 Jun 16 Facility Cpl Zachary N. Heber 27 Sep 16 Facility Cpl Benjamin Bonilla 4 Nov 16 Facility Cpl Robert L. Eden 21 Dec 16 TRACON

Rookie of the Year LCpl Jacob S. Greening 386.14 Total Hours

Civilian Instructor Milestones John D. Dorgan 5,000 OJT Instructor Hours Michael J. Lane 4,000 OJT Instructor Hours

Cherry Point Records Broken in 2016

OJT Instructor Hours – Career

John M. Holbrook – 6,730.03

ATCFO – Career (Maj Hernandez) Most OJT + Sim hours – 36,685

Most Arrival Control Qualifications – 30 Most 7253 MOSs achieved – 38

Training Chief – Career (GySgt Cruz)

Most OJT hours – 34,039 Most simulation hours – 5,017 Most 7253 MOSs achieved – 39 Most 7254 MOSs achieved – 36

Most Approach East Qualifications – 18 Most Approach North Qualifications – 18 Most Approach West Qualifications – 40 Most Arrival Control Qualifications – 33

Crew of the Year Again, the competition this year was extremely close between two of the crews excelling in different categories. Only 1 point separated the top two crews and after the dust cleared, Crew 1 finally wrestled the honor away from Crew 3. Crew 1 beat out the other two crews in Total Training Team Meetings (52), Hours per Qualification (63.05), Percentage of Simulation to OJT (13.06%) and Qualifications per Trainee (2.48). Crew 2 had the most qualifications this year with 71 and Crew 3 documented the most OJT and simulation hours with 5,429.

Training Program Statistics Oct-Dec OJT Hours 2,918.58 OJF Hours 243.08 Tower Simulation (Training) 119.83 Radar Simulation (Training) 205.33 Simulated GCAs 1,545 MOSs Issued 13 Position Qualifications 48

Qualifications Name Date Position MOS Sgt O. Y. Lau 6 Oct 16 FC LCpl A. C. Brawn 6 Oct 16 GC 7257T LCpl P. A. Zamora 12 Oct 16 GC 7257T LCpl A. W. Gentis 13 Oct 16 GC 7257T Cpl C. R. Hill 14 Oct 16 FD GySgt K. M. Brady 14 Oct 16 GC Mr D. P. Marshall 17 Oct 16 FD/GC 2ndLt C. V. McCole 18 Oct 16 FC Sgt O. Y. Lau 18 Oct 16 RD Ms J. L. Adair 20 Oct 16 FC LCpl D. T. CurryCavalier 25 Oct 16 LC 7252 SSgt J. A. Michael 27 Oct 16 GC Cpl A. M. Mamula 4 Nov 16 APW 7253/54 LCpl T. D. Farrington 4 Nov 16 AR 7253 LCpl M. C. McDonald 4 Nov 16 FC 7257R LCpl J. Z. Madera 4 Nov 16 FD Sgt B. Bonilla 4 Nov 16 LC 7252

From The Schoolhouse LCpl Vincent F. Brandow 3 Oct 16 LCpl Evan M. Kowalski 11 Oct 16 LCpl Ashley T. Rodriguez 24 Oct 16 PFC Bradley M. Lee 26 Oct 16 Sgt Travis W. Morak 1 Nov 16 1stLt Ryan C. Heiser 14 Nov 16 1stLt Thomas L. Wynn McCafferty 14 Nov 16 LCpl McLain A. Bachus 17 Nov 16 PFC Russell C. Flournoy 21 Nov 16 PFC Nelson I. Ortiz 14 Dec 16

Qualifications Name Date Position MOS Ms J. L. Adair 16 Nov 16 APW LCpl L. S. Taylor 16 Nov 16 FC 7257R Mr J. L. Zobel 17 Nov 16 LC LCpl J. S. Greening 17 Nov 16 RD SSgt B. L. Pugh 22 Nov 16 APW 7254 Sgt J. L. Wurtsmith 30 Nov 16 APE Sgt W. L. Slater 5 Dec 16 AR Capt R. C. Dewey 6 Dec 16 GC LCpl J. Z. Madera 6 Nov 16 GC 7257T Cpl J. Pineiro 7 Dec 16 AR 7253 Cpl S. R. Klaiber 8 Dec 16 APN GySgt K. M. Brady 8 Dec 16 FD LCpl T. Nguyen 8 Dec 16 RD GySgt B. L. Pugh 19 Dec 16 APE Cpl R. L. Eden 21 Dec 16 AR Mr J. L. Zobel 24 Dec 16 RD Ms J. L. Adair 27 Dec 16 AR

STATE OF THE FACILITY ADDRESS As we close out another year of training, I can safely say we had a pretty good one. Traffic continues to recede and student flow/population remains down but training hours and qualifications were not disappointing. The fact that crosstraining did not suffer and we maintained three crews is a testament to facility and crew leadership maximizing the assets that were available. At nearly 2 ½ years, Maj Hernandez has been our ATCFO longer than any other officer since Kevin McCray (1998-2001). Consequently, he has broken three longstanding records and will very likely break many more in the next six months. Likewise, GySgt Cruz has been the Training Chief longer than any since Troy Mason (1999-2002) and has surpassed a half dozen old records. The facility didn’t break any annual records, although we did tie the number of Arrival Control qualifications at 14. We normally push 96 controllers through the training program each year but this year we only had 84, the lowest student flow since 2008. The air station did break a couple of dubious records with the tower count reaching a new low of 26,886 and the GCA count of 4,139 is the lowest since I started keeping track 20 years ago. On a positive note, over 58% of the GCAs were done by trainees. After no facility ratings in 2014 (self-inflicted) and three in 2015, we qualified six Marines throughout the facility and added two more TRACON ratings. On the civilian side we had one retirement and two transfers to the FAA. Emily Griffin, Joseph Zobel and Douglas Marshall were hired to fill the vacated slots after Jill Adair was promoted to FPL.

On the equipment side, we received a new tower simulator in August but have not yet integrated it into our program. Within the next few months we will be installing the Enhanced Terminal Voice Switch (ETVS) which will improve some of the issues we have with override and instructor/trainee cutout. In March we had the best results of any NATOPS Evaluation since we created the monster in 1996. May was a busy month; after gaining a new SNCOIC we had the AOPA Fly-In at Morehead, designated a new Tower Chief, and at the end of the month our airshow was deemed the best of the year by the Blue Angels. In August we installed a new simulator, our modernized Facility Manual turned 20 years old, and we were evaluated by MCIEAST for continuation of dual MOS issuance. In October we realigned several ATCAAs in order to accommodate new Q-Routes on the western edge of our airspace. In December the Tower Chief billet turned over again and we began entering controller ratings into a new database for the FAA to establish standard credentials to replace the antiquated Pink Cards and CTO Certificates. Looking forward to this new year, we are currently qualifying trainees for their initial MOS at less than 7 months again and will probably be fairly stable on manpower throughout the year. We anticipate losing a few SNCOs and replacing branch chiefs but most of the major turnovers, especially on the civilian side will take place in 2018 and 2019. There are 44 trainees currently in the pipeline training on 55 positions with 3,000 hours of OJT invested. We anticipated only 172 qualifications this past year but ultimately reached 192. A slight uptick on students should easily put us back over the 200 mark.

“PROCEED ACROSS”/”CHECK WHEELS DOWN”

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