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Lynda Meeks is one of those rare people who loves her
job. She doesn't speak about her career. She
gushes! When asked what she loves best about her
job, Meeks is quick to answer in four words...
“Small office, great view!”
She doesn't work in some cubicle overlooking downtown
Lakewood or Cleveland - her "office" overlooks mountains,
lakes, skyscrapers and forests.
Lynda Meeks, 38, is a pilot with a private airline.
She works an eight days-on and seven days-off schedule,
flying around the country as a self-proclaimed “glorified
limo service.”
“It's funny, when people find out I'm a pilot, they're
like 'Oh really, how long have you been flying?' as if
it's a c ompletely
new thing.”
Meeks has been flying for 14 years.
“There are so many things to love about being a pilot,”
she says.
“Sometimes we have to wake up way before the sun comes up,
but that only means that in the windows of our airplane we
get to watch the sun rise.”
She hopes her enthusiasm for aviation will catch on,
especially with young girls. That's why she created
"Girls With Wings... Dreams Take
Flight."
Girls With Wings is a public awareness and e-commerce
project. It's goal is to introduce flying to girls
at an early age and to motivate them to create "flight
plans not fairy tales." In fact, this year, Girls
With Wings is offering its
first scholarship for
aspiring pilots.
The website features
several games,
inspirational stories about women pilots and volunteer
opportunities. It also offers girls' and women's
clothing, most in some hue of pink, with messages such as
“Yes, Girls Can Fly!” Meeks sells many of the items
at air shows where she comes across young girls who point
at airplanes with their parents.
“Girls are so excited about airplanes... just as boys
are,” explains Meeks. “But it doesn't take very long
for a girl
to realize the masculine aspects of flying and it turns
them off from it. You have to try so hard when
they're 11, 12 or 13 years old to get them back and
interested.
“Girls With Wings is trying to normalize the pursuit of
aviation.”
Meeks' mission also attracts the attention and reflections
of many grown-up girls.
“It's amazing how many women say to me that they either
wish there had been an organization when they were
starting out. Or, and this just boggles my mind...
that they always wanted to be a pilot, but somebody - fill
in the blank here: dad, grandpa, uncle, neighbor or
whoever - said that women weren't pilots,” she observes.
“It's amazing.”
Meeks didn't grow up pointing out airplanes to her
parents. In a middle school test to discover what
career best fit her personality, she was deemed to be a
future librarian. During college, she studied
history, not physics. After college, Meeks joined
the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps.
“After two years of Army ROTC and spending all my time
looking at helicopters and being urged by other
Army pilots to get into flying, it still didn't make an
impression on me... until someone said that aviation was
the hardest branch to get into.”
Meeks decided to accept the challenge. She says it
was a time when determination had to overcome her
deficiencies and others' attitudes about her gender.
“I kind of struggled at the beginning. But, once I
had an instructor who respected my abilities and treated
me equally, I had a blast!
“You can really do whatever you want, as long as you're
willing to work for it,” says Meeks. “Sometimes you
just need someone who has faith in you and pushes you in a
good way.”
Girls With Wings is her pushing.
Meeks would like to see the day when women are accepted as
pilots, not merely assumed to be flight attendants.
She compares it to doctors and nurses when it was unheard
of for there to be a female doctor.
She recalls a talk she had with a
woman friend who's also a pilot...
“She and I had a conversation about how amazed we are to
still be regarded as pioneers,” says
Meeks. “After
so many years of women being pilots, people still look at
us as doing something so completely different. I've
had people say to me, 'I didn't know there were women
pilots.'”
As a result, she likes to walk around in uniform in
airports because it could be the only time a girl might
see a woman pilot. She might serve to be their
inspiration.
Inspiration works both ways.
Meeks says her nieces are her greatest sources of
inspiration because she wants what's best for them and for
them to get the most out of life. One of her nieces
is three years old and wants to grow up to fly helicopters.
She always asks her aunt if she can come to work with her.
Meeks guesses that when she started as a pilot that 4%
of all military pilots were women. She estimates that today
it's 11% and credits the military for doing a
lot to recruit women. In contrast, civilian pilot
licenses issued to women stands at only 6%, up from 3%
since the Federal Aviation Administration started keeping
records more than 80 years ago.
If she wasn't a pilot, Meeks says she has no clue what
she'd be doing. She loves working with Girls With
Wings because she can positively influence girls and young
women. One woman in New York got accepted into a
 tough
flight school because she had been so active in Girls With
Wings, making her application stand out.
It all fits into this Lakewood pilot's philosophy...
“Life is short and you have to do as much as you can
before it's all gone. And I would rather have tried
and failed than to live with the regret of never having
tried.” she adds.
“I hope to use Girls With Wings to give girls positive
role models about what they can do with their futures,”
says Meeks. “They have so much to achieve and it's
easy to fall back on what's being done, what's easy.
I hope Girls With Wings can generate some kind of synergy
to help girls achieve more.”
By dreaming and taking flight.
LakewoodBuzz.com is
pleased to note that in June of 2007, Lynda Meeks was
inducted into
 the
International Forest of Friendship during ceremonies in
Atchison, Kansas. Pictured are Lynda and Forest
Co-Chairman Lin Wells congratulating her. The Forest
is a living, growing memorial to the world history of
aviation and aerospace and was a bicentennial gift to
America from Amelia Earhart's birthplace, the City of
Atchison; and from the 99s, the International Organization
of Women Pilots. Lynda was inducted and recognized
for her "many contributions to aviation as a military
aviator, commercial pilot and educator."
You can learn more about
Lynda's educational mission (and shop for gifts for a
young skyward girl in your life) by visiting the
Girls With Wings website.
We
also recognize Lynda as the
founder of the Lakewood Entrepreneur Group and for her
ongoing leadership and involvement with Lakewood's
business visionaries who have dreams of their own to
share... you can learn more about LEG by visiting
LakewoodBiz.com.
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