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NORAD Santa Tracker

Stories say that it was a mis-dialed call in the mid 1950s that led organizers to begin what is now the Santa Tracker, a bi-national program that runs each Christmas and now employs fighter pilots, several different air force bases and staff, and over 1500 volunteers! In 2014 there were over a hundred thousand phone calls and almost 20 million visits to the NORAD Santa Tracker website!¹ Luckily for me, I know someone important in the know down there at NORAD! Major Jennifer Stadnyk happens to be the poor soul I message with Public Affairs questions every once and a while and, because she’s just an all-around good person, she helps me out. Much more importantly, Major Stadnyk has the pretty incredible job of being a Public Affairs Officer for Santa Clause at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs. How is that not the coolest job ever? In 2013 I interviewed Major Stadnyk about the Track Santa program and thankfully again this year she was able to take a moment during Santa’s busiest season to answer a few updated questions for us to let us know more about how we can our kids can track Santa in 2016!   1. I think being a Public Affairs Officer for Santa is possibly the coolest job in the CAF! How did you find yourself with this job? I also think it’s pretty cool! I found myself working in the CFB Kingston public affairs office during the ice storm of 1998 and really fell in love with the importance of communicating what the Canadian Armed Forces was doing to support the local community, I knew that’s where I needed to be! Being a PAO allows me to catch…