So, you have just boarded an airplane at Wall Blake International, and are all braced for take off. Just before you are airborne, your pilot checks in at the tower for instructions. Likely, the voice crackling over the radio, issuing what sounds like some secret code, belongs to Glen Boothe. He is one of several air traffic controllers who ensures that you get to your destination safely, and on schedule. If ever you chance to visit the tower, he is the tall, slim, bespectacled guy with the wide smile.

Glen Boothe is a Jamaican national who has been employed with the Government of Anguilla for almost four years. His encounter with Anguilla came about after his wife, Joy Boothe, was recruited as a teacher at the Gloria Omolulu Institute. Because of his accommodating, open, friendly, easy-to-get-along-with demeanour, those who know him since his arrival here would be under the impression that they have known him all their life. Glen views his profession as an art that one should constantly strive to perfect. According to him, “One error in judgement can lead to serious consequences”. In this respect, the air traffic controller is placed on the same level as a surgeon. To spend one day in his shoes as the air traffic controller would mean that you would have to acquire certain attributes, if you do not already possess them: acute judgement, analytical thinking, and being able to resolve conflicts or foresee potential air conflicts.

On a daily basis, the air traffic controller has to expedite and maintain an orderly flow of air traffic; prevent collisions of aircrafts operating in and around the aerodrome. As a young boy at St. Georges College in Jamaica, he aspired to be a pilot. He was not accepted for training, however, because he did not have the 20/20 visual acuity that would make him eligible. Nonetheless, “Being an air traffic controller was the next best thing to being a pilot. I am now responsible for over ten airplanes instead of one,” says Boothe. Boothe was trained at the Euro-Control Institute of Air Navigation Services in Luxembourg in aerodrome and approach training before working at Donald Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, and then later at Kingston International. His interest in area control led him to further his studies at IAL Bailbrook College in Bath, England.

Glen Boothe is also a family man and a professed Christian who has not hesitated to continue to work in Anguilla. He is an elder and a teacher at the Shimei Seventh Day Adventist Church at Long Bay.

Glen Boothe

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