“I still remember it vividly as it was exhilarating. I was 20 years old. My first flight was in a Cessna 172, a four-seat single-engine prop plane,” Brown said. “My instructor in college was with me, along with my supportive, yet reluctant father in the backseat. We took off out of Long Island and flew to Greenwich, Connecticut. I was on top of the world. I could not believe that my view was the sky.”
To make her dream a reality, she had to work two jobs to pay for college and for flight training. She even asked her family for money at one point, promising she would pay them back after.
Tahirah Brown, our first African American woman pilot, shares how hard work, creativity, determination, and mentors helped her build her “office in the sky.” Read more: https://t.co/q8RP6GG5Xj pic.twitter.com/wCQ90J2nn7
— FedEx (@FedEx) February 7, 2018
Brown credits another history maker for helping her on her career path.
“I met Bill Norwood, the first black pilot at United Airlines, while in Tuskegee, Alabama, at Operation Skyhook and he introduced me to OBAP, the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals,” Brown said. “That introduction provided me with the guidance I needed, and also helped me with scholarships for flight training.”
“I felt like the world had no limits,” Brown said.
Read more about Brown's experience at the FedEx Blog.
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