00:00My name is Tammy Benz and I'm a 737 First Officer for American Airlines. I love flying,
00:22like I'm never bored when I actually go to work and have to go fly an airplane. I get to go fly
00:28an airplane. And every flight is different. Every airplane feels different. It's loaded
00:32differently. We have different number of passengers, different number of bags, and the
00:37wind might be blowing a different way. Let's say it's raining or it's snowing.
00:41It's always, there's always some kind of variable. So it keeps, it keeps me engaged,
00:46which I really appreciate. When I was young, I really loved airplanes. I loved the
00:50airport. I liked flying anywhere, but I didn't really realize that could be my
00:54job. And I, my freshman year, I actually was a music major. I was going to be a
01:00music teacher. And I sang then. I still sang. So freshman year came and went, went
01:06through it. But by the end of freshman year, I was like, yes, it's not for me. So I
01:09changed my major to speech pathology and audiology. I decided I was going to be a
01:13speech therapist. And about halfway through sophomore year, I was like, yeah, that's
01:18not it either. So I actually, my best friend was the one that was the genius that
01:22told me, you know, all freshmen had to take an aptitude test. And so she's like,
01:26well, why don't you pull out that aptitude test and see what you'd be good
01:30at and pick something you like from that list? So I did. I pulled it out and at the
01:33top was aviation. I don't know if that was based on points or based on alphabet,
01:37but I was like that, I want to do that. So I had gone to the airport to do my
01:42first flight to see if I really did want to do that. And I was hooked as soon as I
01:46took off. I was like, I get to bring this back down. I'm not really sure how it's gonna
01:49happen. But once we got back down, I was like, I want to do this a million times
01:53over. So that was, I was hooked as soon as I had my first flight. Being a pilot,
01:59I'm going all over the, I'm going all over the place. I'm not necessarily the
02:03world because my airplane doesn't travel the world. We just kind of do the
02:07Caribbean and Central America and some places in South America. And it, until
02:12somebody asks me and I sit down and think about it, I don't even realize that
02:15that's what I'm doing. I'm just doing day one, two, three, four. And it's, it's
02:19cool to look back and be like, oh yeah, there's this cool place in Guatemala that
02:22I'd like to go get tacos. I'm like, who says that? I say that. And I think that's,
02:27that's really cool, but I have to stop and take a moment to think about it
02:30sometimes.
02:30The moments that really catch me aren't really the flying moments. It's the
02:36moment where I'm saying goodbye to passengers and a black mom walks up to me
02:40with her kid and she's like, it's amazing. Do you see her? Do you see that?
02:45She's a black pilot. She, you can be a pilot. Those are the moments that get me.
02:49It's when I can see that the love and the, the pride that those people, I feel that
02:55they put in me at that moment, that's what really gets me. Those are, those are the
02:59good days. Because as a kid, I never thought that I'd be a pilot. I didn't even
03:03see that as a thing that I could be because I never saw someone like me that was a
03:07pilot. But now we actually have more of us out here. So a lot more people can
03:11look at a pilot and be like, Hey, that person looks like me. I can do that. So
03:16I'm, I'm grateful for the opportunities that have been presented to me. I'm
03:21grateful that I was told not to stop just because things got difficult. And I
03:27appreciate that there is a space for me here that exists. And I, I love that I'm
03:34able to create more space for people like me. To the little black girls out
03:40there, you can be anything that you want to be. If you want to be a pilot, go be a
03:44pilot. I would love for you to be a pilot because I'm a pilot. I want to see you
03:48come do what I do. I have a passion for it. I want you to, I want you to love it as
03:52much as I do. And if that's where your love lies, please come do that. If you want
03:57to do something else, if you want to be a chef, if you want to be an interior decorator,
04:01you want to be an engineer, if you want to be a doctor, do that. But you can be
04:05anything that you want to be. And if you don't see anybody that looks like you
04:10that's doing it, then you should be the person that looks like you that's doing it.
04:13Take your career to new heights. Apply now at aacadetacademy.com.
04:20That was such an inspiring story.
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