Join us in honoring the 2019 WAI Pioneers

WAI has selected the 2019 inductees for its International Pioneer Hall of Fame. These women will be honored at the 30th Annual International Women in Aviation Conference during an induction ceremony and celebration dinner at the Long Beach Convention Center on Saturday, March 16, 2019, from 6-8 p.m. Please note this year’s evening events will be business attire.

The 2019 Pioneer Hall of Fame inductees are:

Leanne Caret is executive vice president of The Boeing Company and serves as president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space and Security unit.  She is a member of the Boeing Executive Council and leads more than 30,000 employees. Leanne joined Boeing in 1988, and today is responsible for the delivery of weapons systems and technologies critical to the national security in the United States and its allies. Throughout her career, Leanne has engaged with industry, government and academic leaders on a wide range of topics and issues related to national defense. She has devoted considerable attention to STEM education and support for veterans and their families; and leadership excellence.  She is executive champion for the Boeing Women in Leadership organization.

Mary Golda Ross was the first known Native American female engineer and the first female engineer in the history of Lockheed. She was one of the 40 founding engineers of the renowned and highly secretive Skunk Works project at Lockheed Corporation. She worked at Lockheed from 1942 until her retirement in 1973, where she was best remembered for her work on aerospace design – including the Agena Rocket program – as well as numerous design concepts for interplanetary space travel, manned and unmanned earth-orbiting flights, and the earliest studies of orbiting satellites for both defense and civilian purposes. Mary died in April 2008, several months before her 100^th birthday, and left a $400,000 endowment to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

First Women of U.S. Coast Guard Aviation is a group of three officers and six enlisted women who proved women had a place in military aviation and who opened the door for future generations of women to pursue their military aviation dreams. On January 1, 1976, the Coast Guard opened all aviation ratings to women, thus making aviation service possible for these nine women and others that would follow them. They include officers Colleen Cain, Vivien Crea, and Janna Lambine and enlisted personnel Erminia Chillon, Andrea Gardner, Dior Lowen Hubel, Kelly Mogk Larson, Robyn Rogers Norvell, and Elizabeth Uhrig.