An Unusual Hero

My father gave me my first flight in a Cessna 150 when I was four years old. I never forgot it. For the next twenty years, while I built a successful career far from the runway, that little airplane kept flying somewhere in the back of my mind — a passion that beat loudly in the background.

I spent more than two decades in a non-aviation career, culminating as an HR Technology Application Support Manager at AT&T. All the while, piece by piece, in my spare time and with limited resources, I earned every rating I could: Private, Instrument, Commercial single- and multi-engine, CFI, CFII, and AGI.

When AT&T centralized operations in Dallas, I had a choice to make. I chose family over relocation — and I chose to turn my lifelong hobby into my profession. Today I instruct full-time at a busy Part 141 flight school, mentoring the future airline pilots who will carry passengers safely home.

Teaching has been the through-line of my whole life: a swim-instructor's aide at ten, a social worker, a classroom teacher, and now a flight instructor. Every chapter pointed me here.