Rosies Girls with Habitat for Aviation & BETA Technologies

Written By Beth White

Habitat for Aviation recently participated in Vermont Works for Women’s Rosie’s Girls TECH February break camp, which collaborated with four Burlington-based companies, including our friends at BETA Technologies.

This initiative provided a platform for girls and gender-expansive youth to explore careers in aviation, engineering, and other fields where women are traditionally underrepresented. Highlighting the camp was the active involvement of Sarah Raimondi from the Women Build Planes team, who, wearing her other hat, worked alongside team members from Vermont Works for Women to inspire participants to envision themselves in diverse and dynamic careers related to aviation.

This immersive experience at BETA Technologies’ Research & Design facility allowed campers to learn about the historical impact of women in aviation and interact with BETA employees from various departments, gaining insights into everything from engineering, to legal, to welding.

In a presentation by Taylor Bushy, an eighth-grade member of the Women Build Planes team, campers got to learn about women in aviation history, with appreciation for the women who came before our Modern Rosies of today.

The facility tour offered a behind-the-scenes look at motor design, aircraft battery evolution, and BETA's eVTOL aircraft, ALIA, as well as a visit to one of Habitat for Aviation’s favorite mentors, Doyle, where we found him hard at work in BETA’s Garage. He stopped to share what he was working on that day — the flight control for ALIA.

The campers loved this hands-on day, which included a pre-flight check of a Cessna 172 by Ella. The youth also got to test their pilot skills with the guidance of one of our favorite mentors, Willa Clark, who taught each camper how to fly ALIA, in BETA’s flight simulator, making the last hour of camp educational, inspiring, and fun.

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.

Previous

Habitat for Aviation at BETA’s Hiring Day
Next

Fly Girls