Cultivating Women Leaders

Sep 13

Women Builds Planes Team presented two workshops at the Women in Leadership Conference, co-hosted by the Vermont Superintendents Association and the Vermont Principals’ Association in Killington, VT

Women Build Planes team members Taylor Bushey, Disa Tatro, Rayan El Kotob, Zoë Brosky, Emma Davis, and Beth White lead two workshops on “Cultivating Women Leaders in Aerospace Through Interest-Driven Real World Learning.” They shared the ways in which Habitat for Aviation supports emerging leaders to explore their identities and interests in the real world alongside skilled mentors.

Our team members shared their experiences and insights on how relationships, trust, support, and hands-on practice have been critical to their development as leaders with workshop participants. In interactive breakout groups led by team member pairs, attendees had the chance to unpack the stories they heard and brainstorm ways to inspire young leaders through their own passions and connections. By the end of our time together, participants walked away with practical tools to help identify and nurture leadership skills in their own contexts.

We were honored and thrilled to share the experience with so many badass women leaders and to hear from Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, Caitlin Canty, Ferene Paris, Mari McClure, and Dr. Smita Ruzicka.

Beth White

Education Possibilitarian, Artist, Writer, Doula, Mentor, Aviatrix, Breast Cancer Survivor, Pilot-in-Command at Habitat for Aviation

In the spring of 2022, Beth White emerged from a 10-month battle with breast cancer with an idea: to create an apprenticeship program at Franklin County State Airport where youth work alongside adult mentors servicing conventional and electric aircraft. A pilot and airplane mechanic apprentice herself, and with family roots in the trades, Habitat for Aviation provides an taxilane for world learning opportunities for youth and adults who love to work with their hands to enter the FAA’s apprenticeship certification track. Each day she puts systems in place that make real John Dewey’s philosophy that we “learn best what we live” – a deep throughline from her time at Antioch University New England and as Regional Director for Big Picture Learning. Each learning experience is grounded in relationships, relevance, and practice. In October, 2023, Habitat for Aviation launched its Women Build Planes program, where an all-female team of Modern Day Rosies is building an airplane at Franklin County Airport, in northwestern Vermont, to show folks everywhere that despite the fact that only 2.6% of airplane mechanics are female, women BUILD, FLY, and FIX airplanes.

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