Women in Aviation; Entering a Man's World

Annette Enriquez stands on a scaffold helping to rebuild a jet engine, wielding a wrench as long as her leg.

The 21-year-old was one of about 30 women working on the shop floor of Kelly Aviation Center recently, surrounded by about 400 men.

Across the street at Boeing, only 11 women actually work on the equipment maintaining military aircraft out of the 1,500 employees who work there.Aviation traditionally has been a man's world, although there have been pioneering women dating back as far as 1906 when E. Lillian Todd was the first woman to design and to build a plane. But that is slowly changing, as more women are becoming pilots, engineers and mechanics.

The number of women in aviation is small but growing, said Amy Laboda, a pilot and editor of Aviation for Women Magazine.

"Women make up 5 1/2 percent of the pilot population and less than 2 percent of the mechanic population," Laboda said. "Since the very beginning of flight, it's been that way. A lot of that has been the mystique that it's a man's world. But there have always been women involved."

As recently as last year, Lockheed Martin veteran Marillyn Hewson was in charge of Kelly Aviation Center. Hewson now runs a Lockheed division in Fort Worth. Colleen Barrett is the president of Southwest Airlines, and Marion C. Blakey is administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Most of San Antonio's female aviation mechanics are at KAC, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin, GE Aviation and Rolls Royce.

Kelly's staff is made up mostly of former Air Force personnel who joined the civilian work force when their Air Force base was shuttered.

"We have an aging work force," KAC spokeswoman Cheryl Kahn said. "A lot of these people are going to be retiring," creating opportunities for women. Unfortunately, Kahn said, "females don't think of this (job) as a possibility."

More than 120,000 women are involved in aviation in non-pilot roles, including about 100,000 flight attendants. But the number of women working as mechanics, dispatchers, ground instructors and parachute riggers has grown more than 18 percent since 2000.

Laboda, who also works for Women in Aviation International, said the goal of her organization is to raise awareness among women about aviation jobs.

"There have been jumps in the number of women who've gone into piloting, aviation maintenance and avionics," she said. "More and more women entrepreneurs are going into the business of sales and actually owning the businesses on the airports that provide the services, the fuel, the maintenance and hangars. Women are starting to become engineers. NASA is one of the best equal-opportunity employers."

NASA got 23-year-old Adela Carrillo interested in aviation. She was part of an aerospace scholars program in high school that was sponsored by NASA. She still wants to work for NASA and is working at Kelly while studying for a degree in mechanical engineering.

"Women think you're a mechanic, and you get dirty," Carrillo said. "It's engineering, math and science."

She and Enriquez are both graduates of the Alamo Area Aerospace Academy. It's one of three professional academies that were developed in partnership with the Alamo Community College District, the city of San Antonio, local businesses and schools. The other two academies are for information technology and manufacturing.

"We're doing everything we can to try to get out to the high schools and work with the counselors to present the program to as many 10th-graders as we can," Alamo Academies Director Gene Bowman said. "The sophomores are our audience because the program is a two-year program for juniors and seniors. We try to work with the high schools and parents."

Kelly Aviation Center offers internships to aerospace academy students and those often turn into job offers upon graduation.

Maria Garcia, 25, got her job through a predecessor to the Alamo Area Aerospace Academy called the Project Phoenix Academy. That academy focused on trades that included plumbing, auto repair and electrical contracting. Garcia opted for aerospace based on the pay and the fact that she's always been mechanically inclined.

"I've worked on cars," Garcia said. "I've done brake installation, oil changes."

Garcia was the first woman hired from one of the high school academies, and she's been there seven years.

"It's been a struggle, and (it's been) challenging," she said. "It's a man's job. I had to prove I could do the same job they have. They trust me."

On a recent day, she was helping rebuild an engine cell. The blades inside the turbine have to be installed and assembled to exacting specifications.

Jim Menard, Garcia's supervisor, said she is more than able to hold her own.

"I was a senior mechanic when she started," Menard said. "She was new. She kind of stayed to herself. But she picked it up pretty fast. It's considered a man's job. But we've come a long way since I've been here."

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"It's a man's job. I had to prove I could do the same job they have. They trust me."

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