From Janitor to First Certified African American Female FAA Controller
Meet BCF member Eleanor Williams! The first job she had at an FAA building was to clean the place. The
mother of seven had just moved to Anchorage from her birthplace in Texas and her sister had a janitorial
contract for the regional office. From that humble beginning in 1963, she launched a career that made her the
first African-American woman certified air traffic controller and the first African-American woman to manage
an Air Route Traffic Control Center.
Before her path breaking success in the controller ranks,Williams spent
a few years as an FAA secretary. Even getting to that point took major
effort. After three months of janitorial service,Williams got a job in a
hospital cafeteria.With an eye on better pay and family benefits, she
attended free classes for stenography and secretarial work at Anchorage
Community College and joined the FAA on March 15, 1965.
In the next few years, the former straight-A student moved slowly up the
pay scale, working for Flight Standards and personnel. She was doing
prep work to bring on air traffic controllers when she spotted a better
opportunity there. “I needed to make more money,”Williams said. “The baby sitter was costing me an arm and
a leg.”
She passed the controller entrance exam and started training at the Anchorage Flight Service Station in 1968,
in what she would later learn was an historic first.With two female supervisors and five African-American men
at the Anchorage center,Williams did not know until 1980 that she had broken a barrier. A woman doing
graduate work discovered the fact and called to tell her.
Early in her career,Williams was already known for competence and compassion — and as a leader. LaVerne
Reid, New England Region Airports Division manager, first metWilliams in 1970 when Reid, a pregnant young
mother, was considering air traffic control.
“Having blazed a trail and cut trees, I was following in
her path,” Reid said. “She was balancing work and
family and sharing those ideas. She had demonstrated
success in a field that was predominantly male.”
Williams told Reid to seriously consider her
commitment to work because conflicts with family
would be rough. Reid decided to wait a couple of years
before jumping in, and the two women worked together
for almost five years. In 1976, they formed an Anchorage
chapter of the National Federation of Business and
ProfessionalWomen.
“Over time,Williams was promoted to training
controllers in Anchorage; supervisor in San Juan, Puerto
Rico; supervisor back in Anchorage; airspace analyst in
Atlanta and at headquarters inWashington, D.C.; area
manager at Kansas City ARTCC; section supervisor in the central region; assistant air traffic manager in Kansas
City; and then in 1994, manager of Cleveland ARTCC, which became the busiest center in the country while she
headed it. Along the way, she was also a PATCO union rep.
Before retiring in 1997,Williams held an executive management position for the regional administrator of the
Great Lakes Region. BCF honored her at the Fly-Sister-Fly Empowerment Breakfast in Houston, TX in August
2007. One of her daughters, DanaWilliams-Robinson, is an FAA controller at Houston Hobby Tower.
Retrieved from http://www.ato.faa.gov 2/27/07
