Tall Tales from
the Tower
The Real Hillbilly Elegy
Stephen G. Morris
The Author
Stephen G. Morris
The USAF gave a seventeen-year-old West Virginian hillbilly, a high school dropout, a battery of aptitude tests and determined he could be a Tin Man. And it wasn’t easy. Only seven graduated ATC school out of twenty-two. And after a year of intensive training at a high air traffic volume control tower, Stephen G. Morris became a Tin Man (an air traffic controller that can move heavy air traffic safely and expeditiously). Yes, after twenty-seven years as a Tin Man, Morris became a director at a Fortune 100 company and a senior vice president at the fourth largest integrated facility management company in the U.S; however, his biggest lifetime accomplishment will always be his time as a Tin Man.