WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Harold Miller was working as a mail carrier in Wichita when a question changed the trajectory of his life and led him to make local history.
Miller, a military veteran born and raised in Wichita, became the first Black air traffic controller at Mid-Continent Airport in 1970. His journey began when he was approached during his mail route about an opportunity in aviation.
“They stopped me on the, on my mail route, Herb asked me, he said, man, how would you like to be an air traffic controller?” Miller said. “And I had no experience about it at all.”
Breaking into a field with little diversity
The recruitment effort was part of a push to diversify air traffic control, which had minimal Black representation nationwide…