Ric Ruminski    Air Traffic Manager.  May 26 2006

Let me first welcome you to the New Anchorage ARTCC web site. I am beginning my second week  as ATM and I can only describe my task as a humbling experience.  I have a new found respect for the members of this online community who serve as ATM  and the various staff positions. I have received numerous e-mails containing questions and comments about the future of the Anchorage ARTCC and would like to address some of those here.

Current ZAN controllers are listed on the roster and I look forward to meeting all of you. There have been a few changes to the old SOP and Policies that you are familiar with.  I suggest that you read through them and note the changes. I also need you to register in the Forums and look forward to your involvement there. Beginning June 1 2006 we will start enforcing the CONTROLLER ACTIVITY AND LEAVE OF ABSENCE  section of the ZAN Policy Statement.

Requests for membership, transfers and Visiting controller privilege will be accepted as noted in our policy section. However, in all honesty, I need you all to realize that we are in a complete rebuilding process. At the present time we do not have an active training program. If you are a new controller it will be some time before we can get you online and started in your VATSIM career. Transferring controllers can also expect to remain at their present rating until the training program gets rolling. Visiting controllers will always be welcome and will be expected to hit the ground running and for the time being and to learn the airspace on their own.

What are our plans for the future? Good question. In the coming months we will be reaching out to the Various VA's that frequent our airways and get them more involved with the day to day operation of the Center. I am presently working on a restructuring of the Anchorage airspace that will make it more user friendly to the controller. This restructuring will simply designate the vast areas of Alaska that hardly ever see any traffic as uncontrolled areas. We will also reach out to the VFR community of pilots by providing weekly VFR scenarios flights that will feature some of our fantastic vistas. Hopefully our controller base will begin to increase as traffic increases.  Anchorage will start planning some small events to the Seattle area featuring Anchorage and Juneau airports.