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February 4, 2015

The FAA's Renaissance Man in Pensacola

February 4, 2015

Mark Rossmore was a musician, Web designer, videographer and pilot before he became anair traffic controller. Now he is all of above and an author to boot – and he incorporates hispassion for aviation into his creative side pursuits. He is an FAA Renaissance man.

Rossmore in the pilot's seat.

A Miami native, Rossmore has been a controller in Florida since 2007, first at PensacolaTRACON and then at Pensacola Tower, where he began working in 2010. He came to theaviation world by way of his parents, a father who was a dispatcher for the former Eastern AirLines and a mother who was a gate agent for British Airways for 30 years.

But Rossmore didn’t gravitate toward his parents’ profession immediately. He studiedelectronic arts in college and was working full time as a Web designer even before hegraduated. Rossmore started his own firm in 1999 and enhanced his skills over the nexteight years, motivated in part by clients who wanted new products for their businesses.

He learned on his own how to produce, shoot and edit video. “When running your ownbusiness, it’s not in your best interest to turn down projects on a whim,” Rossmore said,adding that “it got me out of the office.”

His digital talents eventually gothim into the pilot’s seat as well.Rossmore’s father was a privatepilot in the 1970s but stoppedflying when his son was born.When medical issues kept hisfather from renewing his pilot’slicense later in life, Rossmorelearned to fly instead so he couldget his father back into the air withhim.

“I did a barter and trade with theflight school,” Rossmore said. “Ibasically paid for my flight hours with Web design.”

That was in 2004, about the time he began burning out on Web design as a career.Rossmore’s father, who later regained his pilot’s license and was even certified as a flightinstructor, taught aviation management and safety at the time. He encouraged Rossmore toconsider becoming a controller instead.

Rossmore enrolled in the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative at Miami Dade College andkept his own business going while in school. “In the last two months alone before I joined theFAA,” he said in a 2013 interview with NATCA Insider, “I shot and edited six different

Rossmore incorporates aviation themes into his music.

corporate videos.”

During his downtime while in training at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in OklahomaCity, Rossmore found his musical muse – one with an aviation theme. He wrote andproduced five tunes using his guitar, keyboard, headphones and laptop, reviving an interestin music that dated back to his senior year in high school.

Two years later, Rossmore included all five songs on his debut instrumental album, “Bringthe Rain.” He has recorded two albums and two extended plays since then and startedbringing his music to visual life in 2010 with his first music video, “Every Storm Has an End.”

Rossmore, who records under the stage name Escape the Clouds, has collaborated withpeople on radio shows, book soundtracks and other projects. But when it comes to his ownmusic, he prefers to do it all – the lyrics, the music, the videography, the graphic design andeven the marketing via social media.

“I enjoy the process,” he said. “Ilike being there every step of theway as a creation goes from aconcept to a sketch, to a workingbeta, to a finished project. I likegetting under the hood and seeinghow things are put together, andthen taking a crack at it myself.”

Rossmore uses his music to guidelisteners through fanciful tales.Many of them are set in the pastbut feature technology from the

future that is powered by steam. It’s a genre of alternate history called steampunk andinspired by writers like Jules Verne. Think of the steam­powered locomotive from the finalscene of the “Back to the Future” series.

“I like writing music that transports the listener to a certain time and place,” Rossmore said.

Many of Rossmore’s songs tackle meaty subjects such as women’s rights and the strugglesof American Indians during westward expansion. “Other songs are just plain fun or straight­up fiction storytelling,” he said. “One Bullet,” for instance is about an aerial hit man, and“Louisiana Sunrise” imagines a vampire hunter being turned into a vampire.

Rossmore helped create the software for this newNational Information Display System at Pensacola Tower.

His passion for steampunk literature and alternate history eventually inspired Rossmore tothink bigger than songs. His second album, “Circumnavigator,” was actually an outgrowth ofan unfinished novel he wrote in 2009. “The album inadvertently became a way for me to tie alot of my writing pieces together,” he told the website Dieselpunks.

Now Rossmore is the author of two steampunk novellas and a handful of short stories. Healso has written music reviews and other nonfiction for online steampunk publications.

Rossmore’s love of aviation is evident in his creative endeavors. His first songs includedtitles like “Taking Flight” and “Radar Down”; his music video “Aerodrome” features time­lapsefootage from trips to and from Hawaii; and airships are a staple in his steampunk stories.

Bringing his career full circle,Rossmore also has put his digitaltalents to work for the FAA. He was asubject matter expert on the team thatbuilt Pensacola Tower’s NASInformation Display System, whichshows the weather, runway status andother current airport conditions.

Over several months’ time, Rossmoreworked with facility managers, a frontline manager, technicians, othercontrollers and the off­site NIDSdevelopment team to get the system to initial operating capability last September. When hewasn’t on position in the tower, he led the local design and programming aspects of theproject, focusing on making the system both functional and aesthetically pleasing to thecontrollers who use it.

“Together we gathered content for it, gave input, got input from other controllers, troubleshotthe system, trained other controllers, and communicated improvements and required fixes tooff­site developers,” Rossmore said. “Bringing our strengths together allowed us to create anexcellent end result that will better serve our operation.”

The site went live in October and has been working well, Rossmore said. Other facilitiesnationwide have turned to him for assistance setting up their own NIDS systems. “I’m alwayshappy to help if someone has questions that I may be able to answer,” he said.

This page can be viewed online at: https://my.faa.gov/focus/articles/2015/02/The_FAA___s_Renaissa.html

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Top photo: Rossmore surveys the airport from his perch in Pensacola Tower.

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