Tag: women in aviation

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Integrity and Leadership Kick Off WAI 2026

A brunette woman on a stage with deep blue lights in the background and the WAI 26 logo

There’s always an unexpectedly emotional moment within words delivered by the featured speakers at the Women in Aviation International Conference, and my first tears this morning came during the presentation of the colors.

We have friends, family, colleagues in harm’s way right now, and their service must be honored. This integrity and leadership have already become themes at WAI 2026, and we’re barely halfway through the first day.

With 20,000 members spanning 112 countries, these days WAI has earned the international part of its name, though almost 92% of the membership hails from the U.S. or its territories. More than 5,000 people are expected at the conference this year, and by midday on Thursday almost 4,000 had come through the doors at the Gaylord Texan Conference Center in Grapevine, Texas.

WAI CEO Lynda Coffman is entering her third year at the helm, coming out of retirement after decades of leadership roles at United Airlines. That time has been focused on restoring the organization’s financial health, and in a large part, she has led the team to a steadier course, now earning a 4 star rating from Charity Navigator, its highest.

Building cash reserves continues, so that the organization will be able to better withstand the inevitable headwinds—Coffman called out COVID specifically—and fully fund its programming for the growth ahead.

Part of that growth steers WAI back towards its high-water marks in scholarship monies granted. While not yet near the $900K years around 2006, the $530,000 scholarships in 2025 and $610,000 scholarships to be bestowed this year show the strength and resilience of the industry.

A brunette woman with her hair pulled back and glasses standing next to a podium with the United Airlines logo in the background.
WAI CEO Lynda Coffman spent decades of her career at United Airlines in a number of leadership roles before coming out of retirement to lead Women in Aviation International. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

International programs take on focus too, under Coffman’s tenure. Case in point, International Girls in Aviation Day (GIAD) hosted 40,000 girls in 30 countries in 2025, and the addition of International Ambassadors brought WAI to the Dubai Airshow, among other engagements centering opportunities for women around the world.

Very exciting to me: the introduction of the Global Access Program, which Coffman announced during her opening remarks. Launching on April 1, GAP fills a serious one for women and young ladies in economically challenged regions, with adjusted individual and chapter dues for those wanting to participate. Yes, the $49 dues can feel insurmountable when you’re trying to put food on the table, but dreams should not suffer. The 2026 seed funding for the GAP came from the current WAI Board of Directors and their personal donations to lift the program off the ground.

2026 sees the 50th anniversary of the Women Military Aviators association, honoring their service. Also, WAI has introduced two new awards, the Spirit of Service going to Liz Booker, Literary Aviatrix, and the Mentor of the Year to ERAU professor Samantha Bowyer.

A woman with short dark brunette hair in a kelly green jumpsuit smiles and points to the crowd from the stage
USAF Thunderbird Nicole Malachowski gives a shout out to her “she-roes” in the audience at WAI 26. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Nicole Malachowski Inspires

In a keynote at least in part responsible for the full-to-the-brim general session on Thursday morning, Col. Nicole Malachowski (USAF, ret.) gave us more on integrity and leadership with the story of her path to the cockpit of the F-15E as a Thunderbird.

“I knew I was too short to be a showgirl, so I went with Plan B and became a fighter pilot,” said Malachowski about her childhood in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Just six pilots get to selected to join the illustrious demo team in any given year; Malachowski was picked in 2005.

So it’s not a surprise, really, that my second emotional moment came during Nicole’s talk about her favorite part of being a Thunderbird: the autograph line that assembled for her that was 2 to 3 times longer than the lines for the other pilots. The reason? It would be full of young women, 8-21 years old, who came to see someone who looked like them doing what she did.

Her stories backed up the key takeaways she gave us:

  • Choose an unscripted life.
  • Believe those who believe in you.
  • Breaking barriers requires integrity… you must maintain fidelity to who you truly are.
A powerful quote from F-15E pilot and Air Force Thunderbird Nicole Malachowski at WAI 26. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
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The Space Gal & Pink Overalls

When a child decides to dress up like a scientist for Halloween, you know that STEM education has struck home.

When that child chooses the pink overalls worn by The Space Gal, Emily Calandrelli, you recognize the impact that one woman’s YouTube channel has had on the zeitgeist.

Calandrelli joined the Women in Aviation 2025 conference on March 27 with a keynote session that drove straight to the point: Representation leads to the Belonging that powers Drive and Opportunity. She contends that success doesn’t happen without all three working in concert.

I couldn’t agree more.

With 1.1 million followers on Instagram (@thespacegal) and a YouTube channel with 151K subscribers (@EmilysScienceLab), Calandrelli appears to have hit a sweet spot in the market. But upon closer examination, she revealed, she remains part of a tiny minority of TV/streaming science presenters who are female: less than 2 percent.

Yet her latest series, Emily’s Science Lab (based on her previous work, Emily’s Wonder Lab on Netflix), has resonated. And Wonder Lab continues to draw viewers, ranking in the top 13 percent of all shows and movies.

Why are female presenters considered a “financial risk” for science programming? Emily Calandrelli gives the context. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

This success flies in the face of the chorus of naysayers she encountered when pitching her concepts to traditional networks like the Discovery Channel, where female presenters on STEM topics are viewed as a “financial risk.” The context for the resistance she experienced isn’t going away, unfortunately, but growing stronger (amazingly) in the backlash that trying to shove women back into “traditional roles” (whatever that means… ).

“Their arguments are, one, men don’t want to watch women on television. We scare them. And two, that there’s simply no market for female viewship in science.”

Calandrelli counters this perception with the example set by Reese Witherspoon and the production company she founded, Hello Sunshine, specifically created to develop and execute TV and other media written by, directed by, and starring women. Witherspoon’s success stands in plain sight: Big Little Lies (with 43 percent male viewship). The Morning Show. Little Fires Everywhere. The Last Thing He Told Me. Gone Girl (with 40 percent male viewership).

She related the catalyst for Hello Sunshine: “In one speech [Witherspoon] gives, she says, ‘You know, I would get exasperated reading, script after script, where there would be a woman in an emergency scenario, and in that emergency scenario, she’d stop and look to the guy and say, ‘Well, what do you do now?’ And she said, ‘Do you know literally any woman in your life who would have no idea what to do?'” Certainly, women pilots can relate to this, completely!

After she flew into space on a Blue Origin transport in November 2024, Calandrelli vowed to translate that experience—and her celebrity as the 100th woman in space—to reach further than the series of children’s books she’s authored. Emily’s Science Lab takes 100 experiments from those books and brings them to life in Technicolor rainbows. The sets entice young viewers, but also provide them with a down-to-earth role model they can emulate.

Recruitment comes down to representation: we feel belonging and can achieve goals when we see others like us in the room. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Calandrelli points back to her college life, as she studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at West Virginia University, where she discovered her own sense of belonging amongst her professors and the handful of female engineering students in her classes.

“When I got to college,” she said, “I found a sense of belonging with the female engineers, which there were not many, and we all became close in those classes. And my professors, they became mentors who introduced me to opportunities that I could never have had otherwise.”

I contend that most of us who have succeeded in aerospace fields can relate back to at least one critical mentor of our gender. Perhaps, as in my experience, they didn’t meet that person until later. For me, it was after I earned my flight instructor certificate, after college at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In the Colorado Chapter of the Ninety-Nines, which I joined in 1993, I met two pivotal mentors: Donna Miller and Gretchen Jahn.

At the time, Miller had taken on a special role at Jeppesen, where she served as a personal assistant to the legendary Captain Elrey Jeppesen, as he entered late-stage retirement. She helped him collect his memories and put them in order, an honor to be sure. Miller did me a solid when a position posted in Jepp’s Aviation Courseware department for a technical writer—she walked in my resume. Miller went on to fly for the airlines, retiring earlier this year as a captain for American.

Then, I met Jahn, who co-owned a Cessna 182RG with her husband Karl, and she needed a flight review. From that basis our friendship formed, and over the years I cheered her on as she secured venture capital for a software start-up, and then joined Mooney as its CEO. Jahn followed that with “rescue CEO” efforts at Remos in Germany, and Alpha Aviation in New Zealand. All along, I went to her for advice at various stages of my career, and from her I learned to acknowledge and balance what I wanted to achieve with what resonated personally. And even more so, seeing how she navigated both the hits and misses helped me understand that I could survive when I inevitably faced my own successes and mistakes.

Gretchen, Ruby Sheldon, and me at the Air Race Classic 2005, flying the Mooney M20R Ovation. [From the author’s collection]
Donna and I at her retirement party from American Airlines. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Yes, Calandrelli is right. Both Miller and Jahn showed me directly what was possible, and actively helped me achieve it.

Representation leads to Belonging, which powers Drive and Opportunity.

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No Minced Words: WAI’s CEO Kicks Off WAI25 Tapping Into ‘Outrage’

“A world where the sky is open to all—where aviation and aerospace dreams are possible without barriers.”

Without barriers. If you had to encapsulate the mission of Women in Aviation International, that’s it. The fact we’re even *having* a conversation about the raising of those barriers in 2025 is unbelievable.

But here we are.

WAI25 Meets the Moment

Each time winter breaks through to the first signs of spring, I weigh our ever-expanding travel schedule to determine which aerospace events to attend against three factors: 

  • What I must attend
  • What I want to attend
  • What I can prioritize down in order to say yes to 1 & 2

The Women in Aviation International Conference—which I’ve made a part of my life since 1999—once more went from a “want” to a “must.”

Now, more than ever, this association’s critical mission meets the global moment as it faces a list of challenges, many coming from the U.S. government leadership, that would have been unimaginable a year ago.

Every day brings news of more “takedowns”: the violent scrubbing of resources and references supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives from websites to policy manuals, in the interest of tilting the playing field back to where it was in some vaguely unspecified time before we recognized the importance of representation across our workforce and communities.

WAI CEO Lynda Coffman pulled zero punches kicking off the conference on Thursday, March 27, at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center in Denver at the opening general session.

“As we sit here now, our hard-earned achievements and accomplishments are being erased,” said Coffman. “The policies that are perpetuating barriers and negative stereotypes will only reduce the number of women who can or want to enter aviation.”

So why should we care? Coffman—speaking from experience given her previous role in senior leadership at United Airlines—drew a direct connection to the bottom line for the aerospace industry. “That will lead to smaller talent pipelines for the industry. And those smaller talent pipelines mean a smaller talent pool for the industry, which means thinner pickings for the most qualified people.” That’s not good for anyone—especially when we compare the industry’s “stellar” safety record under these broadening initiatives and their positive impact on the recruitment of the best people.

Tapping into the spirit of the room, which numbered several hundred young people interested and invested in aviation sitting next to seasoned aviation professionals, Coffman asked how many felt disoriented, abandoned, and, yes, angry, given the current state of affairs. Hands flew up. “Yes, you should be feeling angry, because the rhetoric that’s down there right now is a damn outrage. 

“How dare anyone say we are less than, or less qualified because of our gender? It’s utter BS.”

Coffman urged those taking part in #WAI25 to move those feelings to collective action:

  1. Stand together and make their voices heard.
  2. Reach out to those women and allies feeling isolated, singled out, or anxious.
  3. Grow the community, with the stretch goal to lift membership in WAI to 25,000 by April 15.

“Let’s also make this a day,” said Coffman, “that we’ll send the message that we will stand together, we will not be undermined, we will not allow our talents and qualifications to be questioned, and we will not stand for our full contribution to history to be erased.”

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Do We Need WAI?

Today, on #JustJuliesTakes, I ask the question I heard a couple times last week at the Women in Aviation International conference:

Do We Still Need “Women in Aviation”?

The raw numbers say yes—the percentage of pilots holding ATPs that are women has doubled, but when you start at 3.5% just a few decades ago the meaningful change still leaves much room for growth.

The nature of what it means to be a pilot is changing, as we move away from manual skill towards systems management. The breadth of roles is increasing too, with a variety of piloting jobs available—including those from flight instructor to tourist flights to the super short-haul routes promised by eVTOLs that allow a parent to stay home every night. This reduces a key “barrier to entry” particularly for women who are primary caregivers.

And, though the spectre of forcing people into “traditional roles” keeps popping up even in the U.S., changing attitudes towards women working internationally have reached a tipping point in so many countries that we can consider a future when perhaps this isn’t a “thing”—and we’re serving on an equivalent to the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise, where each person contributes according to their talents and skills. (Thank you “Dragon Lady” Merryl Tengesdal for giving me that analogy.)

Speaking of which, both Dragon Lady (a U-2 pilot) and Caroline Jensen (“Blaze,” a Thunderbird) are moms. In our generation, we went from “no women fighter pilots” to this, normalizing these multifacted roles. Moms are soooo badass!

As for how each woman pilot found our way into the cockpit, all I can say is it’s been through our individual means. Some folks are self-directed and appear to need little encouragement, and some need real prodding before they figure out how to shine on their own. Many of us didn’t “need” WAI or the 99s or ISA+21… but those groups have been here to support us and cheer us on anyway. For others, the “hand up” has been priceless.

I foresee a time—10 years? 20?—when we no longer need the distinction of WAI and the 99s any more than we’ll have the QBs (Quiet Birdmen).

Maybe then, the conference will remain the main event, but simply settle into its role as a careers conference for all genders to attend—kinda like today—one that just so happens to do what it does better than most other venues for networking and recruitment. Maybe because we have made it such a nurturing environment that all young professionals appreciate. And it does so around the core of celebrating women within its sectors.

Hey—it’s kinda there already, a marvelous pathway for a diverse group of people to learn about all the roles possible in aviation. Not just pilots.

And as long as we need the beacon to shine the light for more people to follow and join our ranks, we need to preserve as many pathways into the dream as possible.

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Women of Douglas Aircraft

The foundation for the Douglas Aircraft Company started with a woman’s financial support: Charlotte Douglas married Donald in 1916, and cashed in a life insurance certificate she had in savings of $2,000 in 1922 to help launch Douglas Aircraft following his break with Davis.

Charlotte also led the team of women who hand-stitched the fabric covering the wings and fuselages of the Cloudster and Douglas World Cruisers, and performed subsequent detail work within the shop.

Women crafted the fabric covering for the fuselage and wings of the Douglas World Cruisers. [from “Together We Fly: Voices From the DC-3” by Julie Boatman Filucci]

She served as the social director, a counterpoint to Donald’s reserved nature, up until their bitter divorce in 1953.

Douglas, however, was far from finished with having women serve in vital roles for the company.

Peggy Tucker began her time with DAC in the 1930s as a driver, and worked her way up into roles ever closer to “Doug”—to the point where they began an affair leading to their marriage as soon as the ink was dry on his divorce.

As Peggy Douglas, she installed herself literally as the gatekeeper to the executive suite—not as a secretary but as the corporate deputy to Doug.

How did that work out? Read the rest of the tale in “Honest Vision: The Donald Douglas Story.”

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Web Summit: 3 Takeaways

I spent several days last week at Web Summit, which took over Lisbon, Portugal, in a way that no amount of summer tourists can approach. 

With more than 70,000 official attendees, and probably another 10% to form the whole entourage, Web Summit doesn’t so much wash over the town like a wave—rather it encapsulates the spirit of entrepreneurship and new thinking already on an unstoppable march through the city’s centuries-old passages.

I needed a shot of that motivation, so I chose to go this year as part of the Women in Tech initiative, attending the WOW Dinner (a networking event prior to the show) and taking advantage of a bargain rate offered in a promotion last spring.

From those four days I found the following 3 Takeaways:

1.Getting women to the party helps move the needle—but it’s not even halfway there in terms of real change. When it comes to changing the demographics of the STEM fields, representation matters. Web Summit reported roughly 45% women in its registered attendees—but there were a number of glaring discrepancies still in evidence, in the speakers, in the awards, and, tellingly, in the representation of start-ups (particularly from Portugal—this is its own issue). The split felt more even amongst the 20-35 year old attendees. And, overall, there still needed to be better representation from people of color.

In aviation we face a subset of this problem, and it has proven even more resistant to change. We can keep inviting women to the party, but we can’t stop there. Mentoring, intelligent promotion, and generations of changing practices will, with persistence, bring our industry into parity—and diversity in other critical ways. In part, it’s one place where our next big ideas will come from…

2.The big names weren’t necessarily the big innovators. The coolest ideas that I saw were down on the floor, in the Alpha, Beta, and Growth areas featuring start-ups in those varying stages of development. One company is working on a way for you to execute your own will after your passing—using blockchain. Another seeks to make real change in the way we talk about politics on social media—wouldn’t that help us all?

While I see the big aviation manufacturers building on success, they tend to be iterative—much like their colleagues in the tech world. Real change still starts in someone’s T-hangar in the sticks. Or the person drawing connections between seemingly disparate industries. And it comes from a diverse community, folks from widely divergent backgrounds, coming up with solutions in new ways.

3.You can put all the info at a person’s fingertips, but delivering information does not equal communication. That person will miss something important. Web Summit uses a well-thought out app to help attendees manage their experience—it’s better by leaps than any event app I’ve used thus far. But I still missed a few big things, and came close on others–like Stephen Attenborough from Virgin Galactic. The scale of the show is impossible for a single person to digest (it’s like trying to master every function on the G1000)—so here’s where AI can step in. And it will still be the case: Communication must be personalized—and to do that, a person has to be willing to share their preferences and desires.

As communicators, we need to poll our audiences in a way that is timely and congenial—we can’t just keep guessing what they want—or assume they want to hear what we think is best to deliver to them. But they must feel confident in sharing those preferences with us–we must trust each other. I only watch cat videos when I’m already bored to tears—give me compelling stories (it helps if there’s an airplane involved) any day. That echoes another theme: Good content wins influence.

What do you think?