As part of Women’s History Month, ASDL is featuring some of its female alumni. We asked them to share their experiences, their inspirations, and their advice to current students.

Major Latessa Meader

“I currently have the honor of being an aircraft commander on C-130s for the US Air Force. The job is fundamentally to lead crews on missions near and far. The mission may be a formation night-vision-goggle low-level route through the North GA mountains culminating in an airdrop and tactical recovery for a local training mission. Or, the mission might be flying a deployment team, to include maintainers and logisticians, across the Pacific to then execute assault landings on semi-improved surfaces in order to exfiltrate troops from remote locations for large-scale exercises. Or, it could be flying large formations on integrated mission sorties with other US squadrons as well as with our partner nations and allies. No two days are the same, and there is never a dull moment!

Professionally, I am grateful for the range of aviation experiences afforded to me. My first career was as a high school mathematics teacher, and my aviation career started with a job as an Airman First Class turning wrenches to repair C-130 turbine engines in the Air Force. As an airman, I distinctly remember standing on the flightline looking intently at every curve, sensor, and moving surface on the aircraft and thinking I want to know everything about this beautiful aircraft.

That led me to Doctor Mavris, a masters in aerospace engineering, and my first mental paradigm shift. Everything I had experienced up to that point told me there was an answer to every question, you just had to solve the problem. Engineering taught me there is rarely one single answer, but there are always plenty of options. I began to understand the world as a system of systems requiring trade-offs, iterations, and optimization.

After graduation I worked at Delta TechOps as a propulsion engineer, and I greatly appreciated my reputation with the mechanics as being an engineer who understood maintenance and not just what the book said. With a pretty good breadth of aviation knowledge built up, the squadron where I had been repairing engines for seven years, offered me a pilot position to fly with them. I had so much more to learn. Little did I know I was about to encounter my second mental paradigm shift to go from being an engineer where we want ALL the information so we can optimize a solution, to being in a dynamic flight deck where the luxury of gathering all the data and optimizing does not exist since safety of flight decisions generally need to be made in three seconds or less. Once I realized that I had to fundamentally think differently when I was acting as a pilot vs an engineer, I found the critical thinking and understanding of complex systems that I developed as an engineer ultimately make me a stronger pilot.

Returning to my roots as an educator, I am using this range of aviation experiences to write curriculum which has been taught to thousands of students in Georgia already. ASPIRE, the Aerospace STEAM Program Inspiring through Real-world Experiences, is motivating and preparing tomorrow’s aerospace leaders through engaging real-world experiences today. With ASPIRE, we are creating an environment where students are excited to learn and their imagination takes flight. My greatest professional accomplishment is being well rounded in the field of aviation, enabling me to add value from a variety of perspectives.

I have been inspired by so many people who passionately live their lives. That is ultimately the advice I will give you as well – love what you are doing, and if you don’t love what you are doing, go do what you love. If you haven’t found that passion, go try new things; get outside your comfort zone; give passion a chance to find you. No matter where you are in life or you career, just like when designing a system of systems, there is no single right answer to choose, but there are plenty of amazing options. Don’t hesitate to try different combinations; optimize your life for joy!”