Emma Cornett’s Flight Path to Avionics

Written By Beth White

Emma’s aviation journey began in 2023 when she and I met at a BETA Technologies’ Summer Fest. Her interest in aviation was immediate and genuine, and when I invited her to visit our hangar at Franklin County State Airport, she was hooked.

We nominated Emma for a Big Picture Learning Harbor Freight Fellowship, where she completed 120 hours alongside her mentor, George Coy, servicing and maintaining general aviation aircraft. During a hands-on session restoring a vintage Cessna 150, Emma and George encountered an issue with the instrument panel. They called Bill Hanf of Green Mountain Avionics for troubleshooting — and that call changed everything. Emma’s curiosity was piqued.

A week later, after a build session with our WOMEN BUILD PLANES team, George and I pitched an idea to Emma: would she be open to shadowing Bill at his avionics shop?

She said yes.

What happened next was pure magic. Emma completed a second 120-hour Harbor Freight Fellowship at Green Mountain Avionics, resulting in a $1,000 scholarship and a part-time job offer. She accepted. Eventually, as summer rolled around, this led to a full-time position—an incredible achievement for someone still in high school. Emma made the bold decision to accelerate her education through Act 77 and graduate CVU a year early.

Next fall, she’s heading to Nashua, NH, to begin her FAA Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) license program—a clear step on a flight path she has worked hard to chart. Her technical skills, leadership, and dedication continue to inspire everyone around her.

Emma is proof of what’s possible when young people are connected with mentors, tools, and real-world opportunities. She’s redefining what aviation looks like and leading the way for other young women to follow.

Together, we’re building more than planes. We’re building futures.

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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