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Future aviators attend JB Charleston Women in Aviation career day

  • Published
  • By Michael Dukes
  • 315th Airlift Wing
JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C --   About 140 eighth and ninth-grade girls from 19 Charleston-area schools visited Joint Base Charleston March 26 to learn about jobs in aviation as part of the 6th annual Women in Aviation Career Day.

The event was kicked off with a skit performed by 315th Airlift Members who told stories of their career paths from high school to their current jobs in the Air Force Reserve in the aviation field.

During the event the girls met women working various aviation jobs, including pilots, loadmasters, flight nurses and aircraft maintainers.

"I plan on joining the Air Force," said Jaquanna King, a Fort Dorchester Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps member while attending this year's event. She said she wants to be an anesthesiologist because, "I really like to help people and think it would be rewarding."

At the 315th Aerospace Medicine Squadron demonstration and information table, Tech Sgt. Sheryl Sorensen shows Kind how to draw blood from a training arm. King said she had never done that before, but loved it. " It was awesome. And seeing blood has never been a problem for me."

This career day is part of the efforts of the 315th Airlift Wing and Women in Aviation, an international group that encourages women to seek career opportunities in aviation.
According to a 2010 statistic from the Federal Aviation Administration, of the nearly 628,000 active pilots in the United States, less than seven percent are women, and women account for only 21.85 percent of the more than 686,000 non-pilot aviation jobs in the United States.