Mr. Birdsall retired from the FAA at the end of 2006 after thirty-one years of government service. His service in the FAA included more than a dozen years as a certified center air traffic controller and frontline manager; several years as a subject matter expert in airspace design and air traffic control procedures creation and implementation assigned to both the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center (JAX ARTCC) and FAA Headquarters in Washington; and fifteen years as the Automation Manager at JAX ARTCC.
As the Automation Manager Mr. Birdsall was responsible for supervising as many as a dozen software engineers and automation specialists and for the modification, implementation, and troubleshooting of as many as thirty NAS software systems each year. He was the project manager and later a primary implementer of integrating the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) in the Field Automation Support Team (formerly known as AOS). This project allowed Mr. Birdsall to develop a practical expertise in organizational and project metrics and was often consulted by AOS units seeking appropriate measures of performance and effectiveness. Mr. Birdsall also was the ARTCC COTR for the HOST Computer Maintenance contract, overseeing a multi-million dollar activity at JAX ARTCC. Mr. Birdsall also participated in other projects such as the National Off-load Project, International Year 2000 (Y2K) testing, HOST upgrade implementation, ERAM implementation planning, and NAS security planning and implementation.
Mr. Birdsall has many other skills useful in FAA activities. He is a practiced and effective communicator, a skill learned as a free-lance writer for several Florida newspapers, as an adjunct instructor at the University of North Florida, and in the hundreds of presentations given while employed by the FAA. He also is an experienced writer and editor. His work for several newspapers taught him to write clearly and to deadline. His years on the editorial board of The Journal of Air Traffic Control, as a peer reviewer for Continuing Issues in Education, the American Educational Research Journal, and Choice, the journal of the American Library Association, taught him how to compose and edit articles for understanding, interest, and space. He perfected his skills in creating and presenting complex information in an understandable way as an adjunct instructor in political science, public administration, and political philosophy. Mr. Birdsall employed these skills when creating adaptation processes, as the primary writer for many corporate team projects, and in creating dozens of FAA presentations. He is very familiar with many software programs including the Microsoft Office Suite, Project, Visio, Dreamweaver, Sharepoint, SPSS, and PCensus. He has a practical and academic knowledge of statistics.
EDUCATION
BA, American Studies, University of South Florida, 1975
MPA, Public Administration, University of North Florida, 1996
Completing Doctoral dissertation in public policy, University of North Florida, 2008
Certified ARTCC Air Traffic Controller (FPL), 1980
Completed FAA Academy coursework in: HOST adaptation; Networking; Airspace and Procedures; HOST management; and many others.