Remembering the 38 Fallen WASP

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

--John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922-1941)

Capt Jacquelyne Nichols on her toughest flight.

Captain Jacquelyne Nichols

As a panelist in our Greatest Generation Meets the Next Generation: Women in Flight event in Santa Monica on Nov 12th, Jacquelyne Nichols was asked what her toughest flight was and this is what she had to say:

"Every trip provides new experiences, but the same thrill of soaring through the air.  It reminds me of why I wanted to become a pilot in the first place. I am living my dream whenever I step into a plane. I’m a 53 pilot by trade, but I recently converted to the UC35 Delta. This means that I fly colonels and generals to their meetings. Flying is not always easy. I recently had the hardest flight I’ve ever had in my life. I was called to fly a marine home to Oklahoma. He was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer.  He had served two wars in Iraq and he was a combat engineer. It was my job to fly him home so that he could be with his family as he passed. I flew him home to die with his family. I get emotional every time I think about it. That was the most memorable flights that I have ever had."

Capt. Jacquelyne Nichols is an active duty United States Marine currently serving as the Assistant Operations Officer at Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. She recently transitioned to fixed wing aircraft making her the first female Marine Corps pilot to fly the UC-35D. Previously she completed two deployments as a CH-53E helicopter pilot assigned to HMH-466.  She first deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom 14.1 where she earned the Air Medal with Strike/Flight numeral 3.

"The entire air crew division did not want to fly with me" --CDR Karen Fine Brasch, USN (Ret)

Karen Fine Brasch on the far left, back row.

Karen Fine Brasch, CDR,  USN (ret.) talks about inequality in the military, and where change needs to happen most.

"I would definitely say things are changing. It comes down to leadership; I saw it done right and I saw it done wrong. I was the first female pilot in my squadron aboard an aircraft carrier that has never deployed with women. I was young and doe eyed and I thought it was the greatest thing ever and the discrimination thing hadn’t really hit me yet, I was just so excited to be there. I showed up to my squadron and I actually heard the story a little while later, after the fact. The entire air crew division had gone to my commanding officer, Skipper, saying we are not going to fly with her. We’re not going to fly with a female pilot. I had never met them. They had never flown with me, but they were adamant, it was like a mutiny. Skipper turned around and said “she is now your division officer.” And I’ll tell you what, out of all the guys, I am still closest to those guys today. Of course they tell me that story 6 months into deployment. But they had my back the entire time. They were amazing. Like I said, I saw it done right and wrong. When it was right, it was always about leadership."

Karen Fine Brasch is a retired United States Navy Commander and rotary and fixed wing pilot. She completed two tours/deployments to the Middle East war region aboard the USS Nimitz as a helicopter aircraft commander. She was the first female pilot in her Search and Rescue/ Anti-Submarine Warfare squadron, as well as among the first co-ed crew aboard the USS Nimitz (the second battle group ever to deploy with women). She instructed students with the United States Marines training in the UH-1N Huey flight program and led her Navy reserve unit as Executive Officer.

“Querer es poder...if you can dream it, you can achieve it." --Lt Col Olga Custodio, USAF (Ret.)

Custodio was the first female T-38 flight instructor at both Laughlin & Randolph AFB in Texas. (Photo: Olga Custodio)

by Liz Duca


“Querer es poder...if you can dream it, you can achieve it.” Those words speak to the core of Olga Custodio and it is a mantra that she uses to inspire those around her. The moment Olga decided that she wanted to become a military pilot it became her mission, and she was not going to take “no” for an answer.

Olga’s desire to fly began at a young age. Her father was in the Army and she has many memories of traveling around the world with her family. However, when she first attempted to become a military officer through her university’s United States Air Force (USAF) Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), she was told women were not allowed into the program. A later attempt to enter through the USAF Officer Training School was also denied. Despite the obstacles that were placed in her path, Olga continued toward her goal full throttle with grit and determination. When she was 26 years old, already with a family of her own, she decided to make one last attempt to apply to USAF Officer Training School. Her three career choices on her application: pilot, pilot, and pilot. She became all three and then some.

Olga became the first Hispanic female to graduate from USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training, as well as the first female T-38 Talon Flight Instructor at both Laughlin Air Force Base (AFB) in Del Rio, Texas and Randolph AFB in San Antonio, Texas. It was during her time as a T-38 instructor that she was awarded the Headquarters Air Education and Training Command Aviation Safety Award for the superior airmanship she displayed while handling an in-flight emergency when one of her engines failed after a bird strike.

In total, Olga served 24 years in the military and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force Reserve. She flew with American Airlines, retiring with over 11,000 hours flying the Boeing 727, Fokker 100, Boeing 757 and Boeing 767. She was recognized on two occasions by the Senate of Puerto Rico as an outstanding and exemplary citizen, and as the first and only Puerto Rican female pilot in the United States Air Force and American Airlines.

Olga continues to hold a number of roles in her community to include being Vice President of the Hispanic Association of Aviation and Aerospace Professionals (HAAAP), a non-profit organization she helped found in San Antonio in 2010, Executive Director and Treasurer of the Women in Aviation International Alamo City Chapter, a member and trustee of the Order of Daedalians, and a mentor with the Aviation Explorers in San Antonio and the School of Aeronautics at the Inter American University in Puerto Rico. She is also the Director and Founder of the Ballet Folklorico Boriken in San Antonio, a Puerto Rican folk dance group since 1992. The group was founded to promote and preserve Olga’s cultural heritage in Texas and has participated in many cultural and educational events.  Boriken is the only group representing Puerto Rico in the annual Texas Folklife Festival.

   As Captain with American Airlines (Photo: Olga Custodio)

Olga Custodio’s accomplishments, like the WASP, are a true testimony to the power behind believing that your dreams can become a reality. “The WASPs laid the foundation for us, the second generation of military aviators,” said Custodio. “We are the next layer of military pilots who continue to inspire more women to know they can do and become anything they dream.”

Querer es poder!

Dr. Ellen Ochoa: Scientist, Engineer, Inventor, Astronaut & Director of the Johnson Space Center

 

Dr. Ellen Ochoa. (Photo: NASA)

by Jess Clackum

From her seat in the machine perched in a corner of the universe rarely disturbed by any living being, Dr. Ellen Ochoa may well have let her mind wander back to the beginnings of a journey that had led her so high into the unexplored sky.  The year was 1993 and this foray into the place where gravity thinned like tissue paper and the world was dark and silent was Ochoa’s maiden voyage into space as a member of the crew on the STS-56 mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her participation in the 9-day mission distinguished the 34-year-old as the first Hispanic woman to make it into outer space, and her days ahead held even more records to be broken and awards to be received; but, on that day the little girl who had never so much as heard of a female astronaut looked down on Earth, the place where she was born and where she now hovered above, from millions of miles. The trajectory of her life had taken her far, far above the limits of her world’s atmosphere. It was a place she would return to again and again.

Born in California in 1958, Ochoa was the middle of five siblings born to Joe, a Navy serviceman and sometime retail manager and his wife, Rosanne, a homemaker. The son of Mexican immigrants, Joe experienced his share of racial discrimination growing up; the memory of a childhood spent swimming in public pools only on the days before they were set to be cleaned because of public fear that he would “dirty” the waters stuck keenly with him. Consequently, Ellen and her siblings were pushed to assimilate completely into American society, and were even discouraged from speaking Spanish. The fact that neither of their parents possessed a college degree seemed to bolster the Ochoa children’s desire to educate themselves (Ellen’s mother Rosanne, who began steps to earn a college degree after giving birth to several children, would finally earn one 22 years later).

Without any female role models to look to in space travel, Ellen nonetheless took an interest in the field, stating that, “I can't image not wanting to go into space. But I never considered being an astronaut as an option because when I was growing up there were no female astronauts. It wasn't until the first six female astronauts were selected in 1978 that women could even think of it as a possible career path.” An exemplary student who held a particular interest in science, she graduated top of her high school class and was offered a scholarship to Stanford University but chose to attend the much closer to home San Diego State University in order to assist her then-divorced mother.

(Photo: Huffington Post)

At San Diego State, Ochoa weighed her options in considering a major. An accomplished flutist, she considered studying music but also harbored an interest in business and engineering. Her ambition toward the latter, however, was discouraged when she was told that engineering was not a “woman’s field” so she majored in physics instead. Having earned her bachelor’s degree, Ellen was encouraged by her mother to attend graduate school. She soon received a fellowship from Stanford, which unlike her former college, laid no gendered distinctions on their fields of study. It was while earning her master’s degree and doctorate in electrical engineering that a landmark event occurred, the effects of which were reverberated through Ochoa’s own life; “When the first space shuttle took off in 1981, Sally Ride flew for the first time,” Ellen would note later. “Putting all that together with my interest in space is what led me to apply (to NASA).”

It wasn’t long before Ochoa was working as a research engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, investigating optical systems for information processing. Her ambitions to join NASA were realized in 1988 when she was hired as the Chief of Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at Ames Research Center, where her responsibilities included supervising 35 scientists and engineers as they researched and developed computational systems for aerospace missions. During this time Ellen applied three times to NASA’s notoriously selective astronaut program, and her efforts finally paid off in 1990, when she was chosen as a future space explorer and moved to Johnson Space Center. Among the factors that she has credited for her selection are her love of music, which she notes made her a well-rounded candidate, and the pilot’s license that she had earned at an earlier date.

After her first groundbreaking foray into space in 1993, during which she deployed and captured a research satellite used for solar study and conducted studies on Earth’s atmosphere, climate, and environment, she would go on to embark on three more missions, including STS-66, STS-96, and STS-110. STS-96 was the first Space Shuttle to dock with the space station (and then proceed to deliver supplies to the station via a robotic arm operated by Ellen). All in all, Ochoa has spent nearly 1000 hours in orbit. Remembering her last mission into space, she fondly recalls, “We had docked in the international space center. We were looking down at the Earth, and we were watching bright green auroras, and the sun came up and it illuminated the station instantaneously. It was just an amazing visual view. It was amazing to see what we were building in space, and we had an international crew…There were a lot of amazing thoughts associated with that moment.”


In 2013, Ochoa was appointed Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the second woman to ever hold the position. On her evolving career, Ochoa states, “Being an astronaut, and part of a team, is really rewarding, and now I have a different perspective. The end goal is still the same-carrying out exciting and challenging missions in space.” 

(Photo: Johnson Space Center)

In addition to her work with NASA, Ochoa is a co-inventor on three patents and author of various technical papers. She has received a series of awards including NASA's Exceptional Service Medal, Outstanding Leadership Medal, Space Flight Medals and the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award. She has also received the Harvard Foundation Science Award, Women in Aerospace Outstanding Achievement, The Hispanic Engineer Albert Baez Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution to Humanity, and is the first woman to receive the Engineer of the Year award by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference. Ochoa is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, serves on several boards and chairs, and even has schools named after her! 

Having embarked on a dazzling career in an organization that in earlier days would have barred her entry, Ochoa’s thoughts on the past, present, and future of women in NASA are optimistic; “I was fortunate that women had been members of the astronaut corps for a dozen years when I joined. The astronaut corps has been about 20% women during the time I’ve been at NASA- a higher percentage than women who choose engineering or piloting as their careers but nevertheless a percentage that will hopefully grow larger as more women choose science and engineering fields. In the last 20 years we’ve seen the first woman pilot and command a Space Shuttle, and the first woman command an International Space Station expedition. There’s no job in the astronaut corps that women haven’t done and continue to do.”

Dr. Ochoa, wife and mother of two, continues to play the flute, enjoys flying, outdoor activities and spending time with her family.  She also spends time mentoring children just as her own mother did for her.  In fact, Ochoa cites her mother as the biggest influence in her life. Rosanne Ochoa began college when her daughter was just a year old, taking one class a time while struggling to raising five children as a divorced parent. It took 22 years but Rosanne earned her degree expressing that during the long educational experience, she had always remained focused on the learning. That stayed with her daughter Ellen through her studies and beyond.

These days, Ellen Ochoa hopes to inspire and encourage children in much the same way.  She emphasizes the value of hard work, determination and perseverance and encourages them to get a good education and keep focused on pursuing their goals. She says, "I tell students that the opportunities I had were a result of having a good educational background. Education is what allows you to stand out."

Helping Dreams Soar: Though Shaesta's flight has ended, the mission continues!

Shaesta & Jill (Photo: Jill Meyers)

by Jill Meyers

This is the last post in my Helping Dreams Soar blog series, as this week marked the end of the Dreams Soar Global Flight for STEM. Shaesta Waiz returned to Daytona Beach International Airport on October 4th, flying the Beechcraft Bonanza A36 back to its starting point, greeted by the Dreams Soar team, friends, and a handful of media. What was originally going to be a 90-day journey turned into a 145-day journey, common amongst almost every “earthrounder”. As I told many people along the way, we don’t control the weather and we can’t predict aircraft maintenance issues. But how long it took Shaesta Waiz to fly around the world solo is not important at all. What is important are the incredible accomplishments of this mission, never done before in the history of the world.

Shaesta flew almost 25,000 nautical miles across five continents and landed the Bonanza in 20 different countries. She crossed three oceans - the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific - and quite a few seas including the Mediterranean and the Arabian. In addition, she flew via commercial carrier to two countries, England and Afghanistan, to hold Outreach events in places she couldn’t fly to in the Bonanza. We held a total of 32 incredibly successful Outreach events in 17 different locations, inspiring and reaching over 3,000 young girls and boys in person. Many people have flown around the world alone, including nine women, but none of them had the primary goal of inspiring and empowering young girls to reach for the stars and follow their dreams! None of them faced the challenges we did in having to work across every time zone on the planet to reschedule events, often multiple times, due to weather or aircraft delays. It is one thing to reschedule an arrival at international airports when schedules change, which is complex enough, but to be rescheduling visits to schools, gatherings of hundreds of kids at an airport or other venue, and moving media interviews around was not easy!

The pressure on Shaesta and our team was significant due to the calendar of flights and events. A great deal of the burden was on me, as I was handling Outreach planning and ground logistics, and supporting flight planning. But we took each day one at a time, and just played the cards we were dealt. I told Shaesta many times along the way to not worry about the schedule, since that was my job, and I encouraged her to focus on flying safely and keeping the aircraft moving eastward, which she did! In addition to flying and taking care of the Bonanza, Shaesta had to focus on other priorities like staying healthy and getting enough rest, so that when she wasn’t piloting or dealing with the aircraft, she had the necessary energy to tell her passionate story to a group of kids, and then go off and be interviewed by global media like CNN World News or The Independent. All very taxing and exhausting week after week.

We both, along with everyone on the Dreams Soar team, feel incredibly proud of the success of this mission. And as Shaesta always says, “success is never achieved alone”. The entire Dreams Soar team, led during these five months by the amazing Lyndse Costabile, came through every time with whatever help was needed. The reason this is miraculous is that all of us are volunteers, and with the exception of me and Lyndse, they all have day jobs. Busy day jobs. But they have strong passion and found the time to help this mission move forward. And we had the support of so many organizations, many of which I’ve talked about in earlier posts. And of course, our donors, who provided much needed financial or “in-kind” support during these five months. Shaesta would not have completed this flight without everyone’s help. This was the epitome of a team effort!

Matia Karrell, creator and director of FlyGirls and the person who asked me to write this blog, often asks me to be “more personal” in my writing. So here goes. I am very sad to have this journey end and have cried a bit these past few weeks. Being Shaesta’s primary support person, talking and texting with Lyndse many times a day and well into the night, and working with amazing people all over the globe to inspire young girls to pursue their dreams, has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I have made friends all over the world in these past months, and although we say we will meet again, no one knows for sure if that’s true. And although I plan to support Dreams Soar for as long as it exists, I don’t know how often I’ll see the wonderful members of this organization – the Dream Team, the Board members and the Advisory Council members, some of whom I still have not met.

And then there is Shaesta. It is mind blowing that we did not meet until the day before her launch in May. You would never know that seeing us now. But being her “lifeline”, as the Dreams Soar Board called me, and being her “virtual co-pilot”, as Shaesta herself called me, allowed us to build a very special bond between us that will never be broken. We went through a lot together, navigating the many different waters of this global flight. I helped Shaesta get around the world and through some challenges along the way, and we also celebrated the success of each and every Outreach event together. I was very lucky to experience the events in Dubai and Washington DC with Shaesta, and the rest I had to experience vicariously through talking with Shaesta and looking at photos. In turn, Shaesta trusted me to make plans and decisions on her behalf and got to know me well enough by mid-summer to give me a good bit of worldly advice about my own life! I believe Shaesta is what we often call “an old soul”, insightful beyond her years, and with an incredibly altruistic view of the world. I learned a lot from her and will continue to, and I tell her all the time how she has changed my life forever. So, I thank you, Shaesta Waiz, here in this public forum, for having and executing your vision of making the world a better place, and for asking me to be part of that journey.

Dreams Soar’s mission, with Shaesta leading the way, will continue on after this flight, with plans to expand and keep inspiring the next generation of STEM and aviation professionals around the globe, especially young girls who don’t have the means to get a good education without outside help. I look forward to continuing my support to Shaesta and Dreams Soar, whatever that might look like as I transition into a paying “day job”. This has been the time of my life and Shaesta’s landing in Daytona Beach was in fact bittersweet. But I’ll do what I’ve been doing since May, taking life just one day at a time, and hoping that the best is yet to come.

Please continue to follow Shaesta's journey on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/DreamsSoar/

https://twitter.com/DreamsSoarSTEM

https://www.instagram.com/dreamssoar/

CW3 Eva Rodriguez, U.S. Army (Ret.): From Pilot to Author, Spiritual Healer, and Activist Serving Her Community

Eva on military duty. (Photo: georgeherald.com)

by Logan Walker

To most people who experienced a childhood as Eva Rodriguez did, a life of turbulent adventure and near constant travel might seem like a path to be avoided rather than actively pursued. Constancy and environmental stability can provide an undeniable lure to those who have never experienced it. But, as Rodriguez’s unique life and career prove, normal is sometimes just not enough.

Born in 1963 Detroit to Mexican-descended musician Sixto “Sugar Man” Rodriguez and his half-Cherokee wife Rayma, Eva and her family lived a gypsy lifestyle that wasn’t without hardships. She says, “(My parents) did tough things to keep going and raise three kids. I went to 13 different schools because we moved around all the time. Sandra and I were always the new kids at school and before we could make friends we moved again.”

Despite the lack of stability, her parents did their best to keep the family together in a supportive and loving environment. Art was a pervasive part of the Rodriguez home, with Eva recalling that, “Music was always a part of our life. Rodriguez played guitar and we were encouraged to sing and perform poems, drum, and dance.”

Life would change when a U.S. Army recruitment team visited Eva's school. She signed up right away; “As my dad’s daughter I was taught to love not kill. I was a hippie. But the opportunity came along and I realized if I did not get out of Detroit I would probably end up being a mom on crack.”

By 1986 she was working as a combat nurse, and spent a year stationed in South Korea working with the seriously injured. During this time, she helped to evacuate a patient by helicopter for the first time, an experience that left her with a growing interest in flying. Never one to rest on her laurels, by the next year she not only passed the difficult Army pilot training test but became one of the first women to do so. Officer training was intense and difficult, and Rodriguez was striving in what was undeniably a male dominated environment; in personal quarters, she shared a bathroom with 70 men. Despite what must have felt like at least an initial incongruence, Eva remembers an acceptance and camaraderie that eventually sprung up between her and her male co-trainees. Her training took her to Germany between 1988 and 1990 before she was finally rewarded as an official military pilot.

Life as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot was a whirlwind of travel and excitement, alternately thrilling and heart-wrenchingly tense. Sent to Puerto Rico, she spent time acting as a military advisor for Columbia and Barbados before traveling to Honduras, Guatemala and Belize as a safety program manager. Next disaster relief and humanitarian work called her across South America, to places like Nicaragua, Belize and El Salvador. A year later she flew in the Persian Gulf War, carrying patients and medical supplies through the war zones from Iraq to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The steady and substantive financial perks of Rodriguez’s job allowed her to spend lavishly and purchase expensive clothes, cars, and houses (in both Egypt and Germany). Looking fondly on these days which stood in such stark contrast to the modest lifestyle she grew up with, Eva muses, “I literally lived the American dream.” But the dream darkened when the realities of her work in combat put her in serious concern of her life. “I had a lot of close calls, which make you realize you are not in control of everything,” she explained, adding, “There is a reason why you make it out alive and others don’t.”

Returning to America in 1991, Eva put her medical experience to work as a nurse in Kansas, working with patients for four years. Next she spent a yearlong stint as a peacekeeper in Egypt, an experience she recalls as a particular career favorite, before she returned once more to her life in Kansas. It was at this point that she was surprised to learn of two South African fans of her father who were searching for information on the current whereabouts of the “Sugar Man”, whose popularity, she would learn, was quite substantial in South Africa. Eva, who refers to her father only by his last name, was passingly aware of his status as a pop musician whose song (and epithet provider) “Sugar Man” had been an international hit for a period in the ‘70s, but knew relatively little of his music. Inspired by the renewed interest, she set about assisting in the revitalization of his career, taking photos of the musician for fans and arranging and accompanying him on a string of South African tour dates.

Eva, "On 3rd Degree: Rodriguez-Echoes of Freedom" (Photo: sugarman.org)

Once back from the tour experience, Rodriguez’s daily life had reached an adventurous and sometimes hectic fever pitch as it seems she was once more piloting helicopters for the military. Soon enough she found her life changed following the birth of her first child. The 1999 arrival of her son called into question how much longer she could continue in a line of work that meant near constant danger; “I was a soldier by day and a mom by night. But once you become a mom your mind-set changes. For the first time I had something to live for.”

The final straw came for Eva as she piloted a Black Hawk helicopter in the midst of a Columbia drug raid, an experience that forced her to realize that there was no room in her life for both her Army missions and her child. Honorably discharged as a highly decorated soldier, she ended her military career as a Chief Warrant Officer 3, and in 2001 moved with her family to the town of Wilderness in South Africa where she set up house in a rural cliffside cottage.

Reflecting on her long career, Rodriguez states that “As a woman, the effects after a war are very hard. Everyone admires you as a hero, but you don’t feel like one. Twenty years was enough, so I took early retirement.”  Years in the stressful environment of the Army as well as an awareness of her Mexican/Cherokee ancestors and their tribal healing practices influenced her interest in spirituality and native healing, a subject which she calls “full of sacredness and miracles”.

Eva authored the book, The Circle of Love, a book authored by Rodriguez and aimed at highlighting spirituality and nature for children. Picked by UNIMA as an arts intervention project and staged by over 300 students at a school in Cape Town, the book combined many forms of performative art over a period of eight weeks. In 2009, it was performed for the Amateur Arts Festival at George Society of the Arts Theatre where it was nominated for Best Performance and received acknowledgment for directorial and script efforts. According to Eva, “My vision is to promote The Circle of Love as a fundraiser to provide children with greater opportunities to express themselves creatively, encourage a true appreciation of nature, and in doing so expand their own circle of love.”

Immersed in a life very different from the one she led years ago, Eva has settled into a life of healing and authoring in her tranquil community, occasionally accompanying her father on tours and extending her efforts toward community involvement. Of her preferred lifestyle of late, she says “I live in Wilderness, it’s pretty remote. I’ve been there a long time. So I enjoy Cape Town, the art and the buzz, but it gets too much and then I long to go back to Wilderness.” After a career surrounded by men in a largely male-centric field, her current life has seen her surrounded by more women than ever before, as she is in her own words, “still trying to get in touch with my feminine side.” Now an executive committee member of the Outeniqua Business and Professional Women’s Club in George, she views helping with the club’s Phambili Refuge for Battered Women as a priority, stating “I have realized that one way I need to give back is by helping women be aware of their rights within relationships and that there are ways to pursue justice despite being abused and without resources.”

Although her piloting days are behind her, Eva’s continued commitment to serving her community and the larger world through authorship, healing, and community outreach are undoubtedly an extension of the active role she has always taken in meeting challenges head on and bravely participating in the change in both her local and global environment.

"We learned very young that in order to be successful you have to workhard at it, nothing is handed to you." --Major Marisol Chalas, U.S. Army

Major Chalas poses for a photo overlooking the Dominican Republic as part of International Women's Day and a book by Giovanna Bonnelly & Nicole Sanchez titled Mujer , which features 100 Dominican Women who have been trailblazers and opened doors for others to follow. (Photo: Nicole Sanchez)

by Jess Clackum

Major Marisol A. Chalas, decorated pilot with nearly 26 years of service, was born in Bani, Dominican Republic and at age nine, moved with her family to the U.S. to reside in Massachusetts. Chalas's parents were her greatest role models, often working two jobs each to take care of their children.  She says, “We learned very young that in order to be successful you have to work hard at it, nothing is handed to you.”

Chalas followed her parents example and when times got tough after her freshman year at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, she left for a time in order to work. She put in more hours on weekends than most people put in during the week just to make ends meet. When she returned to school, she successfully completed her Bachelor's Degree and went to work for General Electric.

Major Chalas began her military career as an enlisted soldier in the Army in July 1990.  She was among the top graduates at Fort Rucker Army Aviation School and in 2001 received her commission as Second Lieutenant in the Aviation branch from the Georgia Military Institute Officer Candidate School. She has served in various leadership positions, including Lean Six Sigma advisor (Lean Six is a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance through a number of initiatives), Battle Captain and Platoon Leader during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Aviation Liaison Officer with the Combined Joint Task Force for the New Horizons Humanitarian Assistance project in Barahona, Dominican Republic. In addition she has served as Aviation Readiness Officer and Company Commander with FORSCOM (US Army Forces Command) as well as Aviation Force Integrator for USARC (US Army Reserve Command) G-3/5/7 Aviation Directorate.

(Photo: Marisol Chalas)

Major Chalas has an extensive corporate career record with vast international experience. She worked for General Electric for eleven years in a number of management positions. She spent time in Latin America, Asia and Europe and graduated from GE's Nuclear Technical Leadership Program. She also served as a Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, a global firm which provides management and technology consulting and engineering services to Fortune 500 corporations, governments and not-for-profit agencies.

Chalas received her Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Engineering from Massachusetts Maritime Academy (where she currently serves as member of the Board of Trustees) and a Master of Business Administration from J. Mack Robinson School of Business, Georgia State University. She is a certified Lean and Six Sigma Black Belt and member of the National Scholars Honor Society. She completed the Strategic Fellows Program at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC.

 

Chalas is currently serving as the Battalions Operations Officer for 1-158th Aviation Regiment in Conroe, Texas and currently serving as a member of the Congressional Staff on Capitol Hill as part of the Army Congressional Fellowship Program which began in May 2016 and ends in December 2017. During this time she is also working on her Masters in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University.

Major Chalas is indebted to the WASP for the opportunities their service opened up for her.

“Every time I read how this project began and how it has evolved I get goose bumps. These women are extraordinary, driven and true heroes. Thanks to these pioneers and trailblazers who found ways to follow their dreams and make them reality even when they were told 'no', I today can serve as a pilot in the Armed Forces. I salute and thank each of them for their persistence and perseverance."

Major Marisol Chalas, U.S. Army Black Hawk pilot: "We learned veryyoung that in order to be successful you have to work hard at it,nothing is handed to you."

Major Chalas poses for a photo overlooking the Dominican Republic as part of International Women's Day and a book by Giovanna Bonnelly & Nicole Sanchez titled Mujer , which features 100 Dominican Women who have been trailblazers and opened doors for others to follow. (Photo: Nicole Sanchez)

by Jess Clackum
Major Marisol A. Chalas, decorated pilot with nearly 26 years of service, was born in Bani, Dominican Republic and at age nine, moved with her family to the U.S. to reside in Massachusetts. Chalas's parents were her greatest role models, often working two jobs each to take care of their children.  She says, “We learned very young that in order to be successful you have to work hard at it, nothing is handed to you.” 

Chalas followed her parents example and when times got tough after her freshman year at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, she left for a time in order to work. She put in more hours on weekends than most people put in during the week just to make ends meet. When she returned to school, she successfully completed her Bachelor's Degree and went to work for General Electric.

Major Chalas began her military career as an enlisted soldier in the Army in July 1990.  She was among the top graduates at Fort Rucker Army Aviation School and in 2001 received her commission as Second Lieutenant in the Aviation branch from the Georgia Military Institute Officer Candidate School. She has served in various leadership positions, including Lean Six Sigma advisor (Lean Six is a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance through a number of initiatives), Battle Captain and Platoon Leader during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Aviation Liaison Officer with the Combined Joint Task Force for the New Horizons Humanitarian Assistance project in Barahona, Dominican Republic. In addition she has served as Aviation Readiness Officer and Company Commander with FORSCOM (US Army Forces Command) as well as Aviation Force Integrator for USARC (US Army Reserve Command) G-3/5/7 Aviation Directorate.

Major Chalas has an extensive corporate career record with vast international experience. She worked for General Electric for eleven years in a number of management positions. She spent time in Latin America, Asia and Europe and graduated from GE's Nuclear Technical Leadership Program. She also served as a Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, a global firm which provides management and technology consulting and engineering services to Fortune 500 corporations, governments and not-for-profit agencies. 

Chalas received her Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Engineering from Massachusetts Maritime Academy (where she currently serves as member of the Board of Trustees) and a Master of Business Administration from J. Mack Robinson School of Business, Georgia State University. She is a certified Lean and Six Sigma Black Belt and a member of the National Scholars Honor Society and recently completed the Strategic Fellows Program at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC.

Chalas is the Battalions Operations Officer for 1-158th Aviation Regiment in Conroe, Texas and currently serving as a member of the Congressional Staff on Capitol Hill as part of the Army Congressional Fellowship Program which began in May 2016 and ends in December 2017. During this time she is also working on her Masters in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University.

Major Chalas is indebted to the WASP for the opportunities their service opened up for her. 

“Every time I read how this project began and how it has evolved I get goose bumps. These women are extraordinary, driven and true heroes. Thanks to these pioneers and trailblazers who found ways to follow their dreams and make them reality even when they were told 'no', I today can serve as a pilot in the Armed Forces. I salute and thank each of them for their persistence and perseverance."

NASA's Ginger Kerrick: “I have no idea what is next for me, but I trustI will find myself exactly where I am supposed to be!"

Ginger Kerrick, NASA's first hispanic female Flight Director (Photo: NASA)

by Jess Clackum

A native of El Paso, Ginger Kerrick earned her bachelors and masters degrees in Physics from Texas Tech University. She began her career with NASA as an intern in 1991 and was given her first permanent assignment as Materials Research Engineer in 1994. Just over a year later she was reassigned to the Mission Operations Directorate as an instructor for the International Space Station Environmental and Life Support System where she was in charge of training development, simulator development and training conduct for crew members and flight controllers.

In 2001, Kerrick became the first non-astronaut Capsule Communicator (CapCom), a position within Flight Control that relays information from Mission Control to the crew. Four years later, Kerrick was appointed Flight Director, the first Hispanic Female Flight Director in NASA history. Kerrick is a dual-certified Flight Director meaning she has supported both Space Shuttle Operations and the International Space Station. She now serves as the division chief for the Flight Operations Directorate's Flight Integration Division. Kerrick has received a number of awards from NASA and other organizations for her outstanding work.

Read more about Ginger Kerrick, in her own words. Courtesy of NASA:

"I knew early on that when I grew up, I wanted to be an astronaut or a professional basketball player. Then one day, when I was 11 years old, tragedy struck. I watched my father die of a heart attack. My stay-at-home mom had to quickly figure out how she was going to raise me, my older brother, and my older twin sisters on her own. She got a job at my junior high school so she could keep an eye on me. My mom made it clear that without my dad around, she was not going to be able to pay for my college. She explained the concept of academic and athletic scholarships to me and kept me on the straight and narrow all the way through high school. By the time I reached my senior year, I graduated second in my class and was named El Paso Female Athlete of the Year, which meant I had a number of college offers to choose from. After much soul searching, I accepted an academic scholarship at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). I majored in physics and was a member of the women’s basketball team, until I blew out my knee shortly before the first game of the season. There went the professional basketball player dream. Good thing I had the astronaut option still going for me!

Toward the end of my freshman year I learned that NASA did not have a co-op program established with UTEP, so I contacted the Texas Tech Physics Department Chair to inquire about transferring. I explained my financial situation and my goal to become an astronaut. The Chair found a number of scholarships and two part-time jobs for me, the sum total of which would pay for everything I needed for the next year.

I started my junior year at Texas Tech in the fall of 1989 and experienced my first semester away from home. At age 19, I wasn’t quite as grown up as I thought I was. While I had a great time, I lost sight of my priorities and allowed my GPA to drop from a 4.0 at UTEP to a 2.7 after my first semester at Texas Tech. I lost a few scholarships for the second half of the year and NASA told me that there was no way I’d be able to co-op with a GPA that low; some lessons you have to learn the hard way. I spent the next year and a half getting back on track and graduated with a GPA of 3.3, still too low to be considered for NASA’s co-op program but not too low to apply for a summer internship.

In 1991, I got my first taste of working at NASA as a summer intern with the safety organization in a calibration and materials testing laboratory. With my supervisor’s assistance, I transitioned to co-op status at the end of the summer. In October 1993, 2 months before graduating with my master’s degree in physics, I received a letter from the co-op office. The President had put a hiring freeze on all government agencies. They had no idea when it would be lifted and when they could offer me a permanent position. Luckily I stayed a semester ahead in finances so I opted to stay at Texas Tech and take some business courses that next semester while I waited. I knew though that if the hiring freeze was lifted, they probably wouldn’t be able to hire everyone, so to set myself apart, I decided to call the co-op office every Friday at 1 o’clock. Eventually a position opened up and I was one of the lucky few to be hired.

(Photo: NASA)

In May 1994, I joined NASA full-time in the safety organization. After 1 year, I met the minimum requirements for applying for astronaut selection. To increase my competitiveness, I was encouraged to seek out a rotational assignment in mission operations to broaden my experience base. My boss approved a 6-month rotational assignment to the Mission Operations Directorate as an instructor for the Environmental Control and Life Support System of the yet-to-be-flown International Space Station (ISS). About 3 months into that assignment, I was notified that I had been selected for astronaut interviews. I could not have been happier! However, during the medical tests I learned I had kidney stones, a medical disqualification. Needless to say, I was devastated. After wallowing in self pity for several days, during which I contemplated giving up on NASA altogether and moving on to something else, I arrived at a new perspective – it just wasn’t meant to be. But, as an instructor for the astronauts, I could still make a contribution to the program, with each astronaut taking a little piece of me with them. That would be the closest thing to actually going myself. With that new perspective and the support of my supervisor, my rotational position to the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) was made permanent in 1996.

Over the course of the last 14 years in MOD I have had a number of unique and very satisfying jobs. Following my experience as an ISS Life Support Systems Instructor, I created a new position, that of Russian Training Integration Instructor, to integrate training and operations products among Houston, the Gargarin Cosmonaut Training Center, and Roscosmos (the Russian space program) in support of the Expedition 1 Space Station crew. Following the successful execution of that mission in 2001, I became the first non-astronaut CapCom (Capsule Communicator), the Flight Control position that relays information from Mission Control to the crew. I served in that role for 4 years until I became a Flight Director in 2005. I am a dual-certified Flight Director, supporting both ISS and shuttle operations. I have supported 13 ISS crews and five joint shuttle missions, including lead assignments for Expedition 14 and STS-126/ULF2.

I have no idea what is next for me, but I trust I will find myself exactly where I am supposed to be!"

Helping Dreams Soar: When Crisis Hits, Just Take It One Day At A Time!

Hurricane Irma (Photo: NASA) 

by Jill Meyers

It goes without saying that the past two weeks have been very challenging for many people around the country. Wildfires in the west have produced red-hot flames and thick black smoke, destroying hundreds of thousands of acres and causing fatalities in Montana, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California, and Utah. In the opposite corner of the country, many of my friends and colleagues were impacted by Hurricane Irma, not to mention the folks in Houston still reeling from Hurricane Harvey. I decided not to publish a blog episode last week since some of the Dreams Soar and FlyGirls teams live in Florida and were dealing with more important things like staying safe. This week I am going to write about taking things one day at a time, an important way to maintain one’s sanity in the wake of multiple and overlapping crises.

For me, the past two weeks were centered around two things. The first was filling in for Lyndse Costabile, our Dreams Soar Board of Directors Chairwoman, who was stranded on a Caribbean cruise due to the hurricane, with very limited access to Wi-Fi. Much of my effort was spent trying to keep in contact with our team members in Florida, along with our new Advisory Council member who lives in Antigua, an area hit very hard by the hurricane. I was first trying to determine who had evacuated (and where to) and who stayed behind to weather the storm Then I struggled to reach everyone afterward due to power outages and lack of cell service in affected areas. In the end, everyone was okay, but it was a bit stressful during the “not knowing” period, which lasted for days. I got through it by taking things one day at a time, and often just one hour at a time. I had to realize that all of this was out of my control, and I needed to stay positive and keep trying to reach everyone, and just hope for the best. And it worked.

Meanwhile, Shaesta was monitoring the weather along her route from Hawaii to California, with daily support from our friends at Universal Weather. The only issue seemed to be the wind -- it was blowing westerly, which I am told is not normal for that crossing. Even with all six fuel tanks filled to capacity, Shaesta needed to wait for the math to work out and needed the flight computations to be convincing that she could get all the way across based on the average wind component across the entire 2,119 nautical mile route. On September 7th, all looked good! Shaesta departed from Honolulu and was on her way! I was so excited! But then a little before two hours into the flight, I received a message from Shaesta that she was turning around. OH NO!! It turned out that some weather built up out of nowhere and the winds aloft increased during that brief time she was in flight. Shaesta made a very difficult but correct and admirable decision to do the SAFE thing and go back to Hawaii. So, we all went back into “wait mode”.

Shaesta continued to rest and monitor the weather, and the rest of us waited. For the first few days, I had to deal with a flood of Dreams Soar team members, sponsors, supporters, partners, and the public in answering questions regarding her status. This would have been stressful in itself but now I was handling this on top of dealing with the oncoming hurricane. But again, I just took every call and text and email one at a time, took a lot of deep breaths in between, and reminded myself that everything happens for a reason and that it would all be okay in the end. And it was.

The Bonanza arrives in California (Photo: Shaesta Waiz)

 

It was another week before the winds behaved! On September 14th, Shaesta got back in the Bonanza and took off for Hayward, California! It was perfect weather and the wind computations looked good. Shaesta was in a super positive mood and was so excited to finally be doing this crossing! Her flight time was 14.5 hours, a daunting task for a solo pilot. One of the things I do to support Shaesta is to monitor her flight, which has me logged into a system that allows me to follow her speed, altitude and exact latitude/longitude position at all times. Why is this important? Well, because the publicly-accessible flight trackers either lose tracking over open water, or the data they provide is not accurate or is time-delayed. On these long open-water flights, I feed the aircraft position data to the Universal team, so they can provide Shaesta periodic updates to the winds and weather. And in addition, by knowing her position and altitude, I know she’s OK. As a solo pilot, especially while crossing an ocean, Shaesta has a LOT to do in that cockpit. If something did go wrong, she would probably not have time to contact me, at least for a while, so I have to stay on top of things. So yes, I spent 14.5 hours watching the tracking data, in addition to being available to communicate with Shaesta when needed. It was a long day for us both! And how did I handle doing that for 14.5 hours? One hour at a time.

Shaesta successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean this month and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in June. And crossed many seas in between. And crossed five continents and visited 20 countries. By the time this is posted on Sunday, September 24th, Shaesta will be just a few days away from arriving home in Daytona Beach, Florida. She will have completed her around-the-world trip, the Dreams Soar Global Flight for STEM. She will have met with and inspired 3,000 young girls and boys, letting them know that they too can let their dreams soar. And I bet if you asked Shaesta how she survived this four-month long journey, she would tell you… one day at a time.

Graciela Tiscareño-Sato: Decorated Air Force Veteran, Aviator, Author,Entrepreneur, and Mentor to Latino Youth

From Goodnight, Captain Mama:

Graciela Tiscareño-Sato is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, School of Environmental Design, where she earned a degree in Environmental Design/Architecture while completing the Aerospace Studies program as an AFROTC scholarship cadet. She was commissioned as a Distinguish Graduate and second lieutenant atop the Campanile on the Berkeley campus. After Berkeley, she joined the active duty Air Force and completed Undergraduate Navigator Training at Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento. She graduated in the top 15% of her class of 25 students as the only woman in the class. She then trained in the KC-135R refueling tanker at Castle AFB in California before reporting to the 43rd Air Refueling Squadron at Fairchild AFB in Spokane.  Her first deployment was to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On that trip, she was a member of one of the first few aircrews to patrol and enforce the Southern NO FLY Zone in Southern Iraq after the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm. Flying two or three combat sorties a day over and near the city of Baghdad to prevent Saddam Hussein’s air forces from targeting Iraqi civilians earned her crew the prestigious Air Medal.

During her military career, Graciela lived on or visited four continents and flew for thousands of hours. As an instructor, she taught GPS systems, navigation systems and more in the classroom and in the cockpit. Her favorite rendezvous for refueling was with the SR-71 Blackbird as it came out of its high-altitude missions over the Earth at supersonic speeds. 

Graciela was one of very few women that served on the NATO Battlestaff in Vicenza, Italy during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Later she led a multi-service group of communications technicians at the U.S. Embassy in Quito, Ecuador in counter-narcotics operations.  Her last mission abroad was planning and leading a two-week CAPSTONE mission to Asia Pacific theater to introduce newly – minted generals to their new posts in Malaysia, Korea, Singapore, Hawaii, Okinawa, Japan and more. She spent almost ten years on active duty as a navigator and instructor, eventually also becoming a wing contingency planning officer. During her active duty service, she earned a Master degree in International Management from Whitworth University in Washington. She speaks English and Spanish fluently.

Graciela is the Founder of niche publishing, marketing and communications firm, Gracefully Global Group, LLC. She is the author of the award-winning book Latinnovating: Green American Jobs and the Latinos Creating Them, which highlights Hispanic entrepreneurs innovating in the green economy. In between military service and entrepreneurship, she spent nine years in global marketing roles at Siemens, where she applied her military career lessons in a global, multicultural, corporate environment. Her thought leadership pieces have published in the U.S. and Europe including American Careers, Huffington Post, Fox News, Hispanic MBA, Communications News and many other publications.

Graciela is a sought-after speaker on entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership, personal branding and the "STEM of Aviation." She speaks to a wide variety of audiences ranging from young children to corporate professionals and university students.  Graciela actively mentors students needing education and career roadmaps. LATINAStyle Magazine named her “Entrepreneur of the Year” in Washington D.C. and the Business and Professional Womens Foundation in D.C. honored her in 2014 with a National Business Women's Week Award.

Graciela is the author of an Amazon bestselling bilingual children's book titled Good Night Captain Mama/Buenas Noches Capitán Mamá, the first bilingual children's book about why mommies serve in the military. This ground-breaking book was honored at the American Library Association National Convention (2014 International Latino Book Awards) in the category of "Best Educational Children's Book - Bilingual." Since then, it's won awards in competitions among military writers, independent publishers and the prestigious Writers Digest Magazine (1st Place, Children's Picture Book.) 

Captain Mama and her children will star in a bilingual aviation travel adventure series in the years to come; the second award-winning book in the series (Captain Mama's Surprise) published in summer 2016. It won First Place in the "Most Inspirational Children's Picture Book - Bilingual" category at the International Latino Book Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. 

Read more about Graciela's work at CaptainMama.com

Helping Dreams Soar: The Team at Universal® Weather & Aviation, Inc. inHouston Gives It Their All!

by Jill Meyers

Last week I wrote about my own round-the-clock efforts to support Shaesta Waiz and the Dreams Soar team and mission, and how the reward far outweighs the fact of not being paid. This week I am writing a special tribute to our all-volunteer support team at Universal® Weather & Aviation, Inc. Why am I doing this? Because they are located in Houston, Texas. Yes, Houston. Their continued support to us (and other clients) during Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath, is stunning and admirable beyond description. They are true examples of people who are so passionate about their work and so dedicated that they go to great extremes, with personal sacrifice, to fulfill their mission.

Universal’s Aviation Weather department is an experienced team of aviation meteorologists who “predict and adapt to weather conditions impacting your missions.” They have an amazing team assigned to Dreams Soar, headed up by their manager, Jack (I am using all fake names to protect their privacy), who was a Meteorologist in the U.S. Air Force, and who runs this team with compassion and a great sense of humor. He calls their Dreams Soar team “The Women of Meteorology”! The team includes three Master Meteorologists: Kim and Tara, both military veterans with over 25 years of experience; and Leah, with 18 years of experience. We also have two Senior Meteorologists: Alison, who also holds a dispatch license and specializes in weather flight following; and Wendy, newer in her career but a real role model for young women hoping to move into the science of Meteorology.

Universal provides Shaesta a weather report prior to departure, with information that helps her make go/no-go decisions. When Shaesta is enroute, they do “flight following”, meaning they follow Shaesta’s flight plan and provide her real-time weather data - information that helps her make the best decisions on things like avoiding storms or minimizing turbulence. The Universal team and I are able to exchange messages and pictures with Shaesta using a private and secure onboard system. We usually have two people from Universal working each flight. In addition to exchanging weather information, we try to have fun too! Sometimes we play “Marco Polo”, a game I loved playing in our backyard pool as a kid. Alison or Tara will type “Marco”, and Shaesta will provide her exact position from her flight computer, and I’ll take a screenshot from a map-based tracking system I use and post it with the reply “Polo”! And sometimes Universal will provide a satellite or infrared photo that looks like this: 

Sample weather photo (Photo: Universal)

The Universal team provides all of this support on a volunteer basis, day and night. Some of them work from home after their normal work shift ends, and some will drive into the office in the middle of the night to get online. Then, Hurricane Harvey came, during a time in August when Shaesta was scheduled to fly every other day, hopping across the South Pacific with questionable weather conditions. When I learned of Harvey’s path heading to Houston, I immediately contacted Jack, who assured me that Wendy, Alison, Tara, Kim and Leah would all be available as needed, even if they were stuck at work or stranded at home. My emotions bounced between shock and gratitude. The day after the hurricane devastated Houston, I texted Jack to see how he was doing. He replied by telling me he and his wife and dogs had to be rescued from their home by boat, and then he sent me photos of his neighborhood that brought tears to my eyes. He later told me that Leah’s home was also under water, and that she stayed at work to be online with Shaesta, while her husband dealt with the flooding until she got off shift.

Shaesta and I were so grateful for their continued support over this difficult time, and we reminded them of this during every flight. Wendy and the others would reply by simply saying how much they love what they do, and that they were just happy to be a part of our mission to inspire the next generation. It touched our hearts, and still does. 

The cleanup in Houston continues and Jack tells me it will take a year to rebuild his home. Leah and her husband are in a similar position. Luckily, the others on our Universal Dreams Soar team had no catastrophic losses. Throughout the past two weeks, we have witnessed this incredibly dedicated group of people giving support to Shaesta during a time when they had serious issues to deal with at home. They made this decision out of compassion for us, love of their own work, and dedication to supporting their customers no matter what the situation. It takes a very special kind of person to do this, and we are forever thankful. To the team at Universal, your devotion and altruism made moments like this one below possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Shaesta in Nadi, Fiji (Photo: Dreams Soar)

Helping Dreams Soar: The Team at Universal® Weather & Aviation, Inc. inHouston Gives It Their All!

by Jill Meyers

Last week I wrote about my own round-the-clock efforts to support Shaesta Waiz and the Dreams Soar team and mission, and how the reward far outweighs the fact of not being paid. This week I am writing a special tribute to our all-volunteer support team at Universal® Weather & Aviation, Inc. Why am I doing this? Because they are located in Houston, Texas. Yes, Houston. Their continued support to us (and other clients) during Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath, is stunning and admirable beyond description. They are true examples of people who are so passionate about their work and so dedicated that they go to great extremes, with personal sacrifice, to fulfill their mission.

Universal’s Aviation Weather department is an experienced team of aviation meteorologists who “predict and adapt to weather conditions impacting your missions.” They have an amazing team assigned to Dreams Soar, headed up by their manager, Jack (I am using all fake names to protect their privacy), who was a Meteorologist in the U.S. Air Force, and who runs this team with compassion and a great sense of humor. He calls their Dreams Soar team “The Women of Meteorology”! The team includes three Master Meteorologists: Kim and Tara, both military veterans with over 25 years of experience; and Leah, with 18 years of experience. We also have two Senior Meteorologists: Alison, who also holds a dispatch license and specializes in weather flight following; and Wendy, newer in her career but a real role model for young women hoping to move into the science of Meteorology.
Universal provides Shaesta a weather report prior to departure, with information that helps her make go/no-go decisions. When Shaesta is enroute, they do “flight following”, meaning they follow Shaesta’s flight plan and provide her real-time weather data - information that helps her make the best decisions on things like avoiding storms or minimizing turbulence. The Universal team and I are able to exchange messages and pictures with Shaesta using a private and secure onboard system. We usually have two people from Universal working each flight. In addition to exchanging weather information, we try to have fun too! Sometimes we play “Marco Polo”, a game I loved playing in our backyard pool as a kid. Alison or Tara will type “Marco”, and Shaesta will provide her exact position from her flight computer, and I’ll take a screenshot from a map-based tracking system I use and post it with the reply “Polo”! And sometimes Universal will provide a satellite or infrared photo that looks like this: 


The Universal team provides all of this support on a volunteer basis, day and night. Some of them work from home after their normal work shift ends, and some will drive into the office in the middle of the night to get online. Then, Hurricane Harvey came, during a time in August when Shaesta was scheduled to fly every other day, hopping across the South Pacific with questionable weather conditions. When I learned of Harvey’s path heading to Houston, I immediately contacted Jack, who assured me that Wendy, Alison, Tara, Kim and Leah would all be available as needed, even if they were stuck at work or stranded at home. My emotions bounced between shock and gratitude. The day after the hurricane devastated Houston, I texted Jack to see how he was doing. He replied by telling me he and his wife and dogs had to be rescued from their home by boat, and then he sent me photos of his neighborhood that brought tears to my eyes. He later told me that Leah’s home was also under water, and that she stayed at work to be online with Shaesta, while her husband dealt with the flooding until she got off shift.

Shaesta and I were so grateful for their continued support over this difficult time, and we reminded them of this during every flight. Wendy and the others would reply by simply saying how much they love what they do, and that they were just happy to be a part of our mission to inspire the next generation. It touched our hearts, and still does. 

The cleanup in Houston continues and Jack tells me it will take a year to rebuild his home. Leah and her husband are in a similar position. Luckily, the others on our Universal Dreams Soar team had no catastrophic losses. Throughout the past two weeks, we have witnessed this incredibly dedicated group of people giving support to Shaesta during a time when they had serious issues to deal with at home. They made this decision out of compassion for us, love of their own work, and dedication to supporting their customers no matter what the situation. It takes a very special kind of person to do this, and we are forever thankful. To the team at Universal, your devotion and altruism made moments like this one below possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Helping Dreams Soar: The Joy I Get From This Journey Beats Any Paycheck!

by Jill Meyers

When I first contacted the Dreams Soar organization back in March, I asked Lyndse Costabile, the Chair of their Board of Directors, if they needed help connecting to Women in Aviation International (WAI) chapters around the globe, to inquire about collaborating on planning the Outreach events. I really expected to just send a few emails and make a few calls to contacts I had from being a WAI Chapter President since 2012. Little did I know that this would turn into me supporting Dreams Soar 24/7 on a volunteer basis, quitting my job in the process to support Shaesta Waiz and the organization full time. I thought I’d write a bit about what it’s like giving every ounce of yourself to something you are passionate about, even when you are not getting paid.

 As the person handling Shaesta’s outreach events and logistics, it requires me to be available all day and all night to support needs in almost every time zone around the world. In the early months, I needed to be up in the morning to support Shaesta while she was in Canada and then in Europe. At the same time, I was on conference calls with our planning teams in places like Dubai, Singapore and New Caledonia, which often had me on calls very late at night. And then my phone would ring at 2:00 or 3:00 am, when folks overseas forgot to pull up a time zone chart to see what time it was here in California! And once they called, I really couldn’t be rude and say “I’ll call you back when I’m awake”, because by then, their business day is over and they are asleep! So I’d crawl into bed around 4:00 am, until around 5:00 am, when Lyndse and the Dream Soar folks on the East coast would get up and start texting me. I was never one to keep my mobile phone on my nightstand, as I always figured “no call in the middle of the night can be that important”. But as soon as Shaesta departed on May 13th, my watch with the Indiglo night light went into the drawer, and my iPhone took its place, with the ringer and text volumes turned up loud.

Shaesta on the day of her departure (Photo: Jill Meyers)

An interesting phenomenon started to happen in June after Shaesta crossed the Atlantic Ocean and arrive in Europe. It was as if my body clock knew it had to align with hers. One of the Board members said to me one day, “You pretty much have to be up when Shaesta’s up, right? No matter where she is?” and I replied “Yes!". I started naturally waking up when she did without setting my alarm or I would set my alarm for the time I knew Shaesta would be heading to the airport in Athens or Bahrain and wake up right before it went off. But here’s the surprise: I have been getting very little sleep since May, often in 2-4 hour bursts, yet I have a lot of energy and am not really that tired, and I don’t mind sharing the fact that I am in my mid-50s, so it’s not like I’m “twentysomething” and used to lack of sleep.

People often tell me that they are amazed and impressed and even astonished by the fact that I left a high-paying job to do this full time for the duration of Shaesta’s global flight. From the day I started supporting Dreams Soar full time to the day that Shaesta will land in Daytona Beach, I will have been doing this for six months. Yes, it’s been challenging to give up a paycheck as I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I respond to people by saying that this is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done and that I am having the time of my life! 

Supporting Shaesta and this team and seeing the looks on the faces of the young people that Shaesta has inspired fills my heart with love and hope for the future. Knowing that I am part of this team that is helping underprivileged kids understand that they can let their dreams soar is an incredible feeling and you just can’t put a price tag on that.

Young women in Kabul, Afghanistan listening to Shaesta's speech (Photo: UNDP Afghanistan) 

 

Shaesta with girls at an orphanage in Mumbai, India (Photo: Dreams Soar)

Helping Dreams Soar: The Joy I Get From This Journey Beats Any Paycheck!

by Jill Meyers

When I first contacted the Dreams Soar organization back in March, I asked Lyndse Costabile, the Chair of their Board of Directors, if they needed help connecting to Women in Aviation International (WAI) chapters around the globe, to inquire about collaborating on planning the Outreach events. I really expected to just send a few emails and make a few calls to contacts I had from being a WAI Chapter President since 2012. Little did I know that this would turn into me supporting Dreams Soar 24/7 on a volunteer basis, quitting my job in the process to support Shaesta Waiz and the organization full time. I thought I’d write a bit about what it’s like giving every ounce of yourself to something you are passionate about, even when you are not getting paid.

 As the person handling Shaesta’s outreach events and logistics, it requires me to be available all day and all night to support needs in almost every time zone around the world. In the early months, I needed to be up in the morning to support Shaesta while she was in Canada and then in Europe. At the same time, I was on conference calls with our planning teams in places like Dubai, Singapore and New Caledonia, which often had me on calls very late at night. And then my phone would ring at 2:00 or 3:00 am, when folks overseas forgot to pull up a time zone chart to see what time it was here in California! And once they called, I really couldn’t be rude and say “I’ll call you back when I’m awake”, because by then, their business day is over and they are asleep! So I’d crawl into bed around 4:00 am, until around 5:00 am, when Lyndse and the Dream Soar folks on the East coast would get up and start texting me. I was never one to keep my mobile phone on my nightstand, as I always figured “no call in the middle of the night can be that important”. But as soon as Shaesta departed on May 13th, my watch with the Indiglo night light went into the drawer, and my iPhone took its place, with the ringer and text volumes turned up loud.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600.0"] Shaesta on the day of her departure (Photo: Jill Meyers) [/caption]

An interesting phenomenon started to happen in June after Shaesta crossed the Atlantic Ocean and arrive in Europe. It was as if my body clock knew it had to align with hers. One of the Board members said to me one day, “You pretty much have to be up when Shaesta’s up, right? No matter where she is?” and I replied “Yes!". I started naturally waking up when she did without setting my alarm or I would set my alarm for the time I knew Shaesta would be heading to the airport in Athens or Bahrain and wake up right before it went off. But here’s the surprise: I have been getting very little sleep since May, often in 2-4 hour bursts, yet I have a lot of energy and am not really that tired, and I don’t mind sharing the fact that I am in my mid-50s, so it’s not like I’m “twentysomething” and used to lack of sleep.

People often tell me that they are amazed and impressed and even astonished by the fact that I left a high-paying job to do this full time for the duration of Shaesta’s global flight. From the day I started supporting Dreams Soar full time to the day that Shaesta will land in Daytona Beach, I will have been doing this for six months. Yes, it’s been challenging to give up a paycheck as I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I respond to people by saying that this is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done and that I am having the time of my life!

Supporting Shaesta and this team and seeing the looks on the faces of the young people that Shaesta has inspired fills my heart with love and hope for the future. Knowing that I am part of this team that is helping underprivileged kids understand that they can let their dreams soar is an incredible feeling and you just can’t put a price tag on that.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600.0"] Young women in Kabul, Afghanistan listening to Shaesta's speech (Photo: UNDP Afghanistan) [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600.0"] Shaesta with girls at an orphanage in Mumbai, India (Photo: Dreams Soar) [/caption]

"You just got into the air and had the fun of those powerful machines in the sky" -- Molly Rose, legendary British ATA pilot

by Logan Walker

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="412.0"] Molly Rose, 1942 (Photo: UK Daily Express) [/caption]

It was a chilly day in the waning years of the 1920s and it may have been an altogether more sensible idea to stay grounded inside by a fire, but Molly Rose was fortified by an excitement that defied reason. “I remember how cold it was,” she would remember years later and well into adulthood, “but when your big brother invites you on a flight, you don’t run into the house to get a cardigan!”

As a young girl, Molly often watched her brother take off in his Tiger Moth airplane from the windows of the Rose family home; now, as he led her to where it was parked in a field behind the house she could barely contain her excitement. As she recalled, “I was one of a large family, and as a little girl I thought anything my brother did was terrific…I very much enjoyed going anywhere he was prepared to take his little sister.”  It was the first of several trips that would confirm for the young Molly that her aspirations pointed squarely to the pilot’s seat of an aircraft.

In many ways Molly’s passion for flying was either extremely lucky or somewhat inevitable; planes were after all the family business. One of seven children born to Maude and David Marshall, Molly’s father founded the Cambridge company Marshall Aerospace in 1909. The business would later be taken over by Molly’s brother and sometime flying escort Arthur who would expand it to include aircraft construction and servicing. Educated for much of her youth at a local school near her hometown of Cambridge, Molly spent a year at finishing school in Paris before returning to England to work in the family business. By age 17 she had obtained both a driver’s and pilot’s license, and soon after began training as Marshall Aerospace’s first female airplane engineer.

Molly’s personal life had begun to blossom as well; in 1938 she met a young music scholar at St. Catherine’s College named Bernard Rose during a party in Cambridge and the two began dating. A year later, Bernard, was called up to join the war effort as preparations for WWII swept the country. The two were barely married before Molly’s new husband was shuttled off to command tanks in North Africa, Italy, and Normandy, where he would later be captured and imprisoned near Germany.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400.0"] Molly Rose (left) and fellow ATA pilots. (Photo: The Telegraph) [/caption]

It wasn’t long before Molly would receive her own army summons of sorts. In 1942 Rose received an invitation to join the ATA (Air Transport Auxilary), an organization founded by Sir Gerard Regis Leo d’Erlinger. Constructed on the belief that those not qualified to join the countries’ RAF (Royal Air Force) should be put to work transporting aircraft so that RAF members could focus on combat flying, the ATA started off accepting only men who for various reasons could not ordinarily qualify for Air Force service. Eventually, the ATA opened its doors to women, a historic development as Britain had never before allowed a woman in a military aircraft (the women of the ATA also had the distinction of receiving an equal wage to their male peers). In the end, about a fifth of the ATA pilots would be female, and collectively the organization would deliver over 309,000 planes over the course of the war. A natural choice for the job, Molly was seasoned in the world of aviation and a qualified pilot to boot, but despite her knowledgeable background she had spent only 57 hours in the sky (and just 18 of those as a solo pilot).

Molly's training with the ATA demonstrated her natural aptitude for flying, and she soon progressed from piloting the light Tiger Moth planes that she had taken her first taste of flight in, to more substantial single engine planes. Finally, she graduated to the cockpits of aircrafts like the Hurricane fighter and the infamous Spitfire, a piloting experience that Rose herself labeled “a thrilling moment.”

Expanding on her favorite aircrafts, Molly later commented that, “I didn’t like things like Walruses very much, which we had to fly sometimes. I think I liked all those gaudy aircraft that we flew, I mean particularly the twin engine light bombers, which were lovely to fly. And a Wellington was very nice, a reliable aircraft to fly.” Post-training she was stationed at Luton, then White Waltham, and finally in September of 1943 to Hamble airfield near Southhampton, an exclusively female unit that she would remain at for most of her time in the ATA.

Flying for the ATA was a difficult job by any standards. Aetheris avidi, or “eager for the air” read the ATA motto, and true to the description, on any given day Molly and her fellow pilots might be tasked with flying three to four different types of planes. Significant preparation and resourcefulness were needed for these flights, especially when operating a new kind of aircraft; checklists and aircraft notes where utilized in the absence of flight radios, which were not supplied, and often airfields where disguised and hardly perceptible from the sky. “If you were taking a new type of aircraft that you hadn’t flown before, you got the book out of the library, and if you got the chance you read it,” Rose remembered. “But equally you had a small, hard, loose leafed book which you could turn up to the page of the aircraft you were flying, and you stuck it in your flying boot. It became a joke to all the air force pilots in the we always had these. And when you were coming in to land you looked up any salient features of that aircraft.”

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="520.0"] Molly Rose during a visit to RAF Brize Norton in August 2013. (Photo: raf.mod.uk) [/caption]

The urgency of their missions, regardless of the hazards they sometimes posed, was never lost on the women of the ATA. “I was never challenged, but we all absolutely knew that we had our backs to the wall,” said Rose of the tense political climate of WWII Britain. “If Hitler had cared to do an invasion immediately after Dunkirk, he could have walked in. But everyone was doing what they could to help. There was tremendous camaraderie.” In other ways, the experience of flying was freeing; As Rose recalled, “In those days. You did not have to keep to flight paths and heights. You just got into the air and had the fun of those powerful machines in the sky.” Throughout it all, Rose and her fellow pilots maintained a no-nonsense work ethic and practicality that cut through any irreverence or air-stunts; “I think we were all very conscious of the fact that aircraft were special and you didn’t want to break any. I mean if you read Giles [Whittell’s book “Spitfire Women of WWII”] you would feel that everyone was larking about the sky having great fun doing aerobatics. In fact it really wasn’t like that, it was a serious job of work. And we would all realize that aircraft were very rare and very special, and if you could you were going to preserve it. And equally, fuel was very, very, very scarce.”

Over the course of her career as a pilot, Rose transported 486 aircraft of 86 different varieties; among them the Hurricane, Anson, Mustang, Gladiator, Beaufighter, and Wellington Bombers, as well as the notoriously difficult Mosquito aircraft. Each of these were delivered to RAF or Royal Navy airfields and maintenance units where they would await combat assignments, after which Molly and other fliers of the organization would hitch a ride from one of their fellow pilots to the next transportation job. Ever busy with delivery duties, it became common for the women of the ATA to re-label their acronym as “Anything to Anywhere”.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="650.0"] Molly poses in front of a Spitfire. (Photo: Oxford Mail) [/caption]

Molly’s hands were kept perpetually full flying out of her primary base of Ferry Pool No 15 , and in her most hectic year, 1944, she transported 253 planes from one location to another. Her hard work eventually earned her a promotion to first officer (the equivalent of a flight lieutenant). Located near the busy naval centers of Woolsten and Itchen, she also had close exposure to the large scale D-Day preparations happening around her. The immediate aftermath of that event would have a heavy impact on Molly’s personal life; her husband Bernard was captured in the wake of the invasion and reported dead, news that Rose herself refused to believe. Throughout that tense time, she relied on her work to focus her mind and distract her from the uncertainty of Bernard’s fate; “At least during the daytime, I was busy with my own skin. And you know, you do worry about yourself first, however much you love somebody. You’ve got to concentrate on what you’re doing, you’re trying very hard not to break airplanes.” As fortune would have it, she was proven correct when he was verified alive just weeks later.

Hazards abounded for Molly as well, who had her closest brush with disaster in the skies over Shropshire when the engine of the Swordfish she was piloting failed and sent her spiraling toward the ground below. Crash landing on a slanted field she narrowly missed hitting a farm worker before landing upside in her cockpit, hanging precariously from her safety harness.

The return of her husband signaled the end of Molly’s three year tenure with the ATA, and the last of her days as a pilot. Remembering the close of her flying career, Rose remarked that ““When he came back I came out of the ATA. I was much more needed to look after him. I think the war changed both of us, but we were fortunate in that we both liked each other, and we had a very happy marriage of 57 years.” Post-war the Roses settled in Bampton, Oxfordshire and raised three sons. In 1952 Molly was appointed as a magistrate on the Bullingdon circuit, while Bernard became an organist and choirmaster at Oxford’s Magdalen College. In the early sixties the couple to Appleton Manor, a 13th century estate near Abingdon. There Molly set to work hosting choristers, indulging in games of bridge and snooker, and raising funds for charity, a pursuit which earned her an OBE in 1989.

While her husband retired in 1981, Molly was appointed a deputy lieutenant for Oxfordshire two years later, and in due time became an active representative of the ATA in the media. Although her son stated that his mother spoke little of her work as a pilot during his childhood, Molly gained a higher profile as the organization gained new recognition circa the mid 2000s in the wake of developments like Giles Whittell’s WWII biography of the ATA and Gordon Brown’s official awarding of 50 surviving ATA veterans.

Appearing in televised interviews and broadcast programs such as BBC's “The Great British Menu: The D-Day Banquet,” Molly spent her later days active in raising awareness of the previously largely forgotten female pilots of WWII. Commenting on modern flight techniques during a visit to RAF Brize Norton in 2013, Rose stated that “It was much more interesting in my day because one was entirely in control of the airplane. They do not really fly it these days- it’s all computers.”

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="631.0"] Molly Rose pictured with one of the Hurricane planes she once flew. (Photo: airspacemag.com) [/caption]

In October 2016 Molly passed away during a trip to Scotland. At 95, she was one of the last surviving members of the ATA, and one of the few living reminders of a time when circumstances briefly allowed women to serve alongside men in an unprecedented military context, years before such opportunities became standard procedure. Whether as a child riding behind her brother on a freezing English morning or a woman flying through the air over a war-beset country with only an old map and her own resourcefulness to guide her, Molly Rose’s courage, cleverness, and sense of adventure never failed her. As a pilot and a women, she did what few before but so many after her could, which is at the least the sign of a trailblazer, and at the most perhaps the sign of an exceptional person.