Bruce Hansford Slater

Foil: 11 Panel: 1 Column: 2 Line: 56

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mr. Michael Slater

Bruce Hansford Slater was born September 29, 1934 in Newport, Vermont.
He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force immediately after graduating from high school in 1952. He was a Radar Aircraft Control and Warning Operator, stationed in French Morocco, North Africa, and later at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Maine.
After serving four years in the Air Force, he was hired by the Civil Aeronautics Administration (forerunner to the Federal Aviation Administration) as an Air Traffic Controller. He worked at locations in Houlton, Maine, Falmouth, Massachusetts, and Charleston, West Virginia, where he had the privilege of landing Air Force One, with President John F. Kennedy aboard.
In 1969, he transferred to FAA. Headquarters in Washington, D.C. There he was employed by the Central Altitude Reservation Facility and newly-formed Airport Reservation Office (now the ATC Systems Command Center.)
He was then promoted to Operations Officer in the Communications Control Center, an office of the FAA. Administrator, which deals with aircraft hijackings, plane crashes, near misses, etc. He worked crisisses, including the 1971 D.B. Cooper hijacking, as well as the largest aircraft accident in aviation history, which occurred when two B-747s collided in Spain in 1977.
Mr. Slater held this position until his retirement on December 16, 1989 after completing 37 years of federal aviation service.