Takashi Nelson’s Journey from Japan to the FAA
The culture shock that Takashi Nelson felt when he moved from Osaka, Japan, to Savannah, Georgia, paid off in the long run. The serendipitous move eventually led him to a air traffic control career.
By Daniel Glover, FAA Communications
When Takashi Nelson graduated high school, he took to heart his father’s admonition to pursue fulfilling life experiences away from his home in Osaka, Japan. The first leg in his journey took Nelson to the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.
“It was quite the culture shock,” he said, not just because he moved to a new country but also from a major metropolis to a relatively small city. “It wasn’t like I moved to L.A. or New York. I have fond memories of the culture shock … but it was a challenge, to say the least.”
It was also a serendipitous move — just like his choice to work part time at Sushi Zen two years into college in order to keep a connection to his Japanese roots. One of Nelson’s regular customers was a retired pilot and graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. Talking to him reawakened Nelson’s childhood interest in aviation.
Now he is 15 years into a career at the FAA, currently serving as the acting senior advisor for the director of Air Traffic Services in the Western Service Area.
“It’s a career that just keeps on giving,” he said. “… It keeps me engaged in the field that I’m interested in.”
An only child, Nelson has both Asian and American roots. His mother is Japanese, and his father arrived in Japan by way of the Peace Corps. Nelson’s father taught English while in Japan and liked it so much that he returned to the United States to earn the educational credentials he needed to become a full English professor. Nelson’s parents still live there.
Nelson, however, has been in Seattle since 2012 — the second stop in his FAA career. He planned to become a pilot, but those jobs were initially scarce after he earned his aeronautical science degree and commercial pilot’s license. The two air traffic courses he took at Embry-Riddle qualified him to take the test to become a controller. He started at Chicago Center in 2006.
Nelson married his high school friend, Aya, while working in Chicago. They have a 12-year-old daughter, Mia, and a 10-year-old son, Senna. Nelson and his wife moved to Seattle so they could raise their children on the West Coast, where Asian culture is more abundant. Seattle in particular had eight options for Japanese kindergarten.
The Nelson children now attend a public school during the week and go to a Saturday-only school funded by the Japanese Education Ministry for students who one day might live or work in Japan. “What I would consider a gift to them is that at least they’ll have a choice,” Nelson said of that possibility for his children. “I just want to give them the option.”
The whole family already has experienced life in Japan. While serving as an operations supervisor at Seattle Center, Nelson earned a Mansfield Fellowship in 2014–15 and moved the family to Tokyo. As part of the fellowship, he worked at Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau headquarters and visited multiple air traffic facilities. He also did stints with All Nippon Airways, Mitsubishi Aircraft and a lawmaker in the National Diet, Japan’s equivalent of Congress.
Nelson returned to his job at Seattle Center after returning from Japan, and then in 2017, he moved to Seattle Tower to work as an operations supervisor in the terminal environment. The supervisory role was similar to his work in the center, but he had to adapt to an entirely different way of controlling aircraft.
“In the en route world, you’re in the middle of a town somewhere that’s not associated with any aviation around you and you’re staring at a screen,” he said. “Now you go to a tower environment, you’re looking out the window with your own eyes and maintaining … visual separation. You’re looking at actual airplanes flying.”
Nelson assumed his current role last October and looks forward to future roles in the FAA. While he plans to stay in Seattle in the near term for family reasons, one day he might pursue an FAA role with an international component to it, in part because of his fellowship experience.
“If I can link the joy of working in aviation with some of the background I’ve had of being born and raised in a different country,” Nelson said, “I can’t ask for much more from a career standpoint.”
The FAA is seeking more people like Takashi Nelson, whose background and culture inspired his success and contributed to a diverse aviation workforce. Like Nelson’s sushi restaurant regular, we encourage anyone interested in beginning a career in aviation to apply for our entry-level air traffic controller positions, which will be open for enrollment between July 30 and August 2. Go to www.faa.gov/LevelUp to learn more about how to apply.
