I'm Karen Hawkins, the Retired Corporate Jet Pilot. How old am I? Here's a hint. My pilot uniform is now hanging in the Women's Air and Space Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.
My aviation career was launched in 1970 when I answered a newspaper ad to Work Weekends as a receptionist in exchange for flying lessons. I did this for over two years, worked my regular bookkeeping job five days a week and every Saturday and Sunday at the airport. Somewhere in there I managed to squeeze in flying lessons as well. I worked one day as a receptionist in exchange for one hour of flying time.
I did this for over two years until I got all my ratings. Fast forward now to 1977 when I was hired on as the first female pilot at a major Fortune 500 corporate flight department. Yes, there is much to tell about those first seven years as well as the subsequent ones, but that is to be shared in bits and pieces in my future podcasts. Where I will be interviewing women involved in various aspects of aviation, be it private pilots, flight instructors, corporate pilots, airline pilots, astronauts.
Hey, how about stunt pilots, military pilots, wasps, air racers, bush pilots, helicopter pilots, crop dusters, air traffic controllers, mechanics, dispatchers, aeronautical engineers, and any other aviation professionals that happen to come under my radar. But back to my corporate pilot career. During my entire 14 years of employment with this company, I was the only female pilot. I will be forever grateful to those in the department who supported me, but also forever impacted by those who went out of their way to make me feel unwanted and frankly strove to undermine my success.
The many examples of both the good and the bad once again will be shared with the ladies I interview as we compare notes from then and now. For now I know that with the help of the good guys and in spite of the bad guys, I progressed up the ladder quite nicely, progressing from co-pilot to reserve captain to full captain on a pace similar to my male counterparts. Unfortunately, my career as a corporate pilot ended in 1994 as a result of medical issues that left me unable to pass an FAA medical exam. For a couple of years prior to my medical retirement, I had worked overtime at my own expense, even paying for advertisements in plane and pilot to bring in another female pilot on the line.
I naively thought that if I located qualified women and presented them to management, at least one of them would get hired. But to my dismay, the department continued to hire men with lesser qualifications. There was just one thing that saddened me more than knowing I would not likely fly again. It was that I had fought and struggled so much to get through each day of my 14 years with the department and that no woman was there to pick up the torch.
As I lay in my sickbed, my disappointment prompted me to pick up the phone and I called the company's Air Transportation Office Personnel Director to register a complaint. Fortunately, the recently appointed personnel director was a woman. She told me she had no record of female applicants and asked me for a list of the names of the women I had referred to the department. Well, it turns out that Chief Pilot had tossed all the women's applications in his bottom desk drawer only to turn the men's applications over to the personnel department for processing.
The scandal was exposed and corrective action was taken. Within months, the flight department began hiring female pilots. My mission was accomplished. Now I could rest.
Not only medically and physically. I could heal my spirit now. A few years later, my spirit was lifted once more when I received a letter from one of the women who had been hired by the department. That woman was Wendy Bradbury-Paver.
She had apparently heard much from those good guys in the department about all that I had endured during my time there. She wrote me a fairly lengthy letter to thank me for blazing the trail that her and others were able to follow. That letter was an amazing boost to my spirit. If you know anyone like that that paved a little path for you, I would encourage you to let them know.
There are many women who will be interesting to interview in my future podcast, but for the aforementioned personal impact that she had on me, I have chosen Wendy Bradbury-Paver to interview for my first podcast. Wendy, I think you got the introduction to the show and it does explain how our paths crossed. But before we get to that, I wonder if you could just give me a brief bio on how you got started, how you launched your career, and what was your path before our paths crossed. All right.
Well, from a very young age, I always wanted to fly your plane. And this was in the 70s when I was in grade school. And I didn't know any about it, but there weren't a whole lot of women flying today. So I said, yeah, go for it.
Where a lot of my other grandparents who weren't very, because they knew it would be a very hard road. Went to college at Lattron University, which is an aviation engineering goal at the Christian College of the Utah Tech. And I was the only female flight student the first couple of years and I graduated in 1989 with degree in aviation technology, which included AMP training, which is mechanic training. Wow, you did an empty as well.
I'm a flight rating book to my commercial flight instructor. So after I graduated, it's a great. I was a flight instructor for many years, had a few babies along the way, which I consider my greatest pleasure and my greatest accomplishment. And after that, I flew, I flew cargo first, flew a converse, 640s out of Willa Run.
And my friend Janet was very instrumental in helping me and encouraged me to get that job. I flew Learjet for 135 operator and finally at Ford in 1999, where I heard many great stories about Karen Hocken who paved the way for myself and their female pilot for the department. So thank you. Well, you are so welcome.
And you can't imagine how much your letter meant to me. It was, you know, it was tough. It was actually quite tough, medicaling out. And, you know, nobody throws a big retirement party for you.
They don't know quite what to say. And you just kind of wander off into the sunset. So getting that letter years later really, really meant a lot to me. And I really appreciate that you took the time to write it.
And that's why we're sitting here talking today. I'm glad I'm glad to touch you because you really, thinking about what you had to endure. Like, wow, you've got some determination and I'm not sure if I could have survived you yet. So I appreciate all that you did.
And there are many other heroes like yourself in other corporations. Oh, yes, sir. You know, the same thing. Not because you wanted to make a name for yourself because you were a woman, but just because you loved what you did.
And you knew that your good example would help those following your foot. Yeah, and if I, this will sound selfish, but I really wasn't thinking at the time about setting a good example, I was just making it ready for me to do what I really wanted to do. Right. So, but it was near the end when I started, you know, really thinking, especially when I got to that sick bed as I talked earlier, boy.
Was this all for not? Is nobody going to follow behind me? So, so it was nice that that it worked out and eventually people did. What?
It doesn't exist though because there are some, always some operators who are hesitant to hire women or hire the token women, just see how it goes. And it makes me sad because we're all people. We all want to do a great job. And just because the fact that we're women doesn't mean that we're going to bring some negativity to the operational.
More times I hear right the opposite. Yeah, and it was quite an eye-opener for me, Wendy. When you invited me to join that private Facebook page of women aviators, I'm not sure if we're even supposed to name it since it's private, but it was quite an eye-opener to get on there and see how much of this is still going on. But it's, there are more women out there flying now.
We've got more of that going and we're headed in the right direction and hopefully we can continue to mentor those who follow and continue to knock down walls and open doors. So, so the, do you think the journey for you at, at Ford was, was easier by the time you got there or? Well, there were still people who had attitudes where they didn't enjoy, couldn't seem like, playing with me, but come to my house. Well, we'll call a new person Joe, Joe Pilate.
Joe Pilate, only I remember him. Believe me, I remember Joe Pilate. It was like you wanted to do those Joe Pilates, but turns out and talking to my other friends who are male and enjoyed my company and joined with me and said, well, it's not you. It's everybody, they're just kind of personivity and make it tough for everyone.
And not that that made me feel better, but it just made me know that I'm not in the fight alone. There's other people who, you know, lean on and do get advice from and get encouragement from. Yeah, it does help. It does help.
And I remember one of those Joe Pilates that always insisted on, I'm sure you remember the cargo compartment of the Conver 580, what a hassle that was to get the ladder lined up and load and unload luggage. And he always insisted on doing it for me when it was the co-pilot's job. But then he went on into management and complained that he didn't want to fly with me because he had to load all the luggage himself. I'm a type of person that I tend to be and I want to come to reading people.
I always bear on the side of, well, this person likes me so they like me. And maybe that has been a key to working with difficult people. Maybe I just don't know they don't like me and I pretend they do. And eventually I can find common ground with them and talk to them and gain their respect when they know that I'm just a person too.
I've got a family just like they do and then we all want the same thing and we just want to do our job well. And like I say, maybe that initial night night could be enough to help the workers but maybe that did help me and maybe it still does for this day. And maybe it's not all naivety but an ability to be tactful and work with people. It sounds like you have a good knack for that.
Well, I always want to find something in a person that either we have common ground. If he's, I shouldn't say he's he or she, but if he's she's not a wasn't an likable person. I think, well, that person has got to have at least one quality that's one redeeming quality and usually there's something. And once I have four that, I'll find out what that is that helps me too.
Maybe gain better insight into what makes them tech work with them. That's not because I have to do that because I have to make sure that someone goes on a woman. But I also think it's a good strategy for anyone entering the workforce is getting to know someone and finding that positive character trait. I guess it'll make you crazy if you think someone's out to get you all the time.
Yeah, and we're talking women in aviation here, but that's important no matter what your gender is. Sounds like you've done well with that. Wendy, were you, did you stay at Ford until they closed the department? I worked up for eight years.
And by the last five years, there was always an mentality of cutting headshots in the flight department. And we had a security system where the last one hired is the first one fired. So, I was laid off with a few other friends in June of 2008. So I was totally heartbreaking.
I knew it wasn't because of my performance, which was a small consolation, but it was my livelihood. Sure. Of course, I want to fly your planes again. And it was actually a very good mom job.
I had a pretty good schedule. Not as good as my airline counterparts because they had more days off that they can count on for a month where my work somewhat subjective. Right. Right.
And being a mom and flying, that was the perfect job for me because I had a lot of home time. I was probably home more. I definitely hope with home more than some of my working mom counterparts who were perhaps school teachers or had nine to five work days. Yes, I found that to be true as well.
Yeah. Yeah. So where did you go after Ford? After Ford, I was looking for jobs and it was a really hard time in the industry, but I was very, very blessed to have gotten hired that same year by an oil and gas company in Dallas.
And I currently fly for that. And we have a stream five fifty and a six fifty. Oh, awesome. That's got to be a good time.
That's got to be a good time. Yeah. So I don't know if you participated in the survey that I put online for women aviators in preparation for this podcast, but there were two areas where there was heavy response as far as what women in aviation would like to see in this podcast or here in this podcast. And one of them was just anecdotes, whether they're funny or serious or whatever.
Do you have a favorite amusing or serious story to tell? I would say about 90% of time on my foreign flight was taken for a flight attendant and I love my flight attendant. Oh, we've all been there. Go ahead.
Yes. Yes. I'm all over that. But one time in particular, I was in Moscow.
And by the way, our flight attendants are not traditional flight attendants. We have flight engineers who are maintenance technicians who also do the cabin service for our passengers. Most of them are men. We have two women's flight engineers and we have mostly men's flight engineers.
So anyway, I was on the road in Moscow. We're on a trip and the one guy looks at the flight engineer and says, how much field do you want? I'm not at the cabin. There's shit.
He says, no, how much field do you want? I want to get a cabin. No, there's shit. I'm not even at him.
I'll tell you what to do. I want to. No, he's a doctor. Captain.
So I know that a lot of people would consider that an insult, which I don't consider an insult to be mistaken for a flight attendant at all, because they do the awesome ones. But I also don't want to get my candy buff in the wild. They're like, why do they think that flight engineer, that guy, is the captain when I'm the captain? Right.
You see that getting in the way a lot of time when women work very hard to get where they are. I've got the clue in you as well. Could even be a safer for someone who's not in your same job classification, which I don't, that doesn't ruffle my father's eye. Kind of makes me do all the way.
And once they realize that I am the captain, they're very like, oh wow, that's awesome. You keep all the Russians. Yeah, that's a great story. And I agree with you about the flight attendants.
Honestly, I think the flight attendants were my best ally. They're awesome people and they do a job that's every good as important as ours. And I also had the experience of having a lineman refuse to pump fuel for me because he just kept, and this was in, gosh, someplace in Texas, he kept saying, I think it was El Paso. And he just kept saying, oh no, I can't take a fuel order from a flight attendant.
And I'm like, I'm not the flight attendant, you know. And eventually I had to send my co-pilot down to give the fuel order because he just didn't believe that I was the captain. And finally, Wendy, the biggest responses that I had in the podcast survey that I did that women in aviation want to hear a lot about is balancing family life and children with their jobs. And you've mentioned already that you're a mom and that various positions have been better than others as far as that goes.
But what advice, if any, do you have to give to other women as far as maintaining that balance? In a couple words, being flexible and being generous with your caregivers. And what works for me is having plan A, plan B, plan B, plan B, because when I get to small, I say, wait, and I tell them I've got the phone call and it's supposed to be at the airport in an hour. Wow.
So when I would get the phone call, I would call my babysitter back before, cell phones or pagers or anything like that. I'd be flexible with that because they're really getting up a lot and helping you to accomplish what you need to do. And paying them well, pay them more than you have to if you can. I know people say, well, that's as much as I make, why?
Right. Well, I know because I've done that. I have given that amount of money to a reliable caregiver, a loving caregiver because I want her to be valued. And if it's being paid more, definitely do that.
If plan A wasn't available, I would always have a support group of moms or friends of my children and tell them, hey, I need a backup. If my babysitter doesn't show up, would you be able to watch my kids? And even if you don't want me to pay you, I will take your kids on a Saturday night. Really being flexible and partnering with, I should say, working with other terms with other moms who could use the favor as well because in the end, they're doing you a gigantic favor by taking your most precious possessions and loving them and hearing from them when you're in far from far from places.
That's a great attitude and that sounds like very good advice. How are your children? How do your children feel? How are they now and how do they feel about your position?
They've got one who's graduated college and one who's in college and one who's in your high school next year. It's funny. So I know in their own way, they're happy about the choices I've made and I've been able to stay home with them. And I always wanted them to feel they were absolutely first place.
I don't want them to feel like they were a burden or that they were just after about flying their planes first. Playing your planes is fun, important. What is the mom? I truly hope that they felt like they were first place.
I think they do. That sounds wonderful. That's beautiful. Is there anything else you'd like to add, Wendy?
I'm just waiting to do whatever ladies have to say in your podcast. I love hearing about other people's journeys and other strategies that have been successful for them. It's going to be fun and it's going to be all over the board. I can't wait to see what comes next either.
But thank you so much for being first and I hope I do it justice because this is a learning process for me right now. Well, thank you for the work you're doing and interviewing everybody so we can learn a little bit more about each other. It was my pleasure, Wendy, and you are cleared for departure. Sound effects courtesy of timber at freesound.org.
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