BEX:
Jane has a 5 year stabilized tour/no cut contract that is up the first week of August 2002. From what I hear she really is going. She is very smart and politically savy, which I believe means she would not take that COO job on a bet. If you are pretty lucky she could take one of your jobs and do, I think, a good of not very very good job. But she is not Gwyneth Dunwoodie!!
The COO job is to run the Air Traffic Organization in the new performance based organization FAA. This means not just ATCOs, but the folks that must keep everything running and the folks that must buy everything for all types of air traffic services, not just ATC. The COO will get the money the agency requests (as modified by the Department of Transportation, the Office of Management and Budget and everybody else up the line) and then appropriated by the Congress and apportioned back down the chain. It is never enough and never for the right things. The number of people you have to do the job is also fixed by Congress. Of course the performance goals will not be changed and if everything does not go according to plan the COO will get to be whipped. The powers that be, I hear, already found somebody earlier this year and after he got a good look at the job decided he wanted to spend more time with his family (or some such reason for running screaming in the opposite direction) Don't blame him.
Iron City