The ARRL Programs and Services Committee (PSC) has appointed George W. “Bud” Hippisley, W2RU (ex-K2KIR), as the new Eastern Area Chair for the ARRL National Traffic System™ (NTS™) for a 2-year term, effective immediately. The appointment comes 2 days after the ARRL Executive Committee voted to remove NTS Eastern Area Chair Joe Ames, W3JY. The PSC reached out to Hippisley this week, and he accepted the PSC’s request. This will be his second appointment to the Eastern Area Chair of NTS.

“We are fortunate to have an appointee who has this breadth of experience and leadership,” ARRL Programs and Services Committee Chair Dr Jim Boehner, N2ZZ, said. “Bud is a man who leads by example, and his accomplishments in NTS and Amateur Radio speak for themselves.”

Hippisley has a distinguished resume of nearly a half-century of service to ARRL. He has been active in NTS and ARES® since 1955, including his continuing service as the Eastern Area Net Manager. His leadership positions with the ARRL Field Organization include Western New York Section Communications Manager (now Section Manager) and Western New York Section Emergency Coordinator. He also served as Atlantic Division Vice Director from 1982 until 1985.

“It’s a privilege to be asked to take on this assignment,” Hippisley said. “I look forward to working with my fellow net managers in the Eastern Area, with the other Area Staff chairs, and with N2ZZ and the entire PSC.”

During his previous tenure as NTS Eastern Area Chair from 1976 until 1983, Hippisley was instrumental in merging daytime and evening systems under the NTS banner, affirming NTS practices as mode independent and inviting proponents of early digital Amateur Radio message-handling systems to demonstrate their concepts at Eastern Area Staff meetings. He is responsible for popularizing the matrix net control form still used by most Area net control stations, and he is the designer of the four-cycle System schedule that underpins NTS expandability in times of heavy traffic loads. In 2010, Hippisley received the George Hart Distinguished Service Award for his long-term contributions to NTS. George Hart, W1NJM, was the chief developer of NTS.

“Of great importance to me over the years of my involvement in NTS is that the third word in its name is ‘System,’” Hippisley stressed. “In the long run, the objectives for a system — and agreement upon operational principles in response to those objectives — are more important than our individual desires.”

Bud Hippisley holds a BSEE from M.I.T. and has done graduate work in solid-state physics, electromagnetics, marketing, finance, and strategic planning. He lives in Penhook, Virginia.