Photo By Senior Master Sgt. Matthew Hecht | U.S. Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 3 Kristina Sofchak stands for a...... read more read more
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New Jersey Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 3 Kristina Sofchak, a Black Hawk helicopter maintenance test pilot with Det. 2 , C Company, 1-171st Aviation Regiment, loved to talk to her mother about career paths.
“I would say, ‘I want to be a waitress,’ and my mom would say, ‘why not own the restaurant?’ I would say, ‘I want to be a nurse,’ and my mom would say, ‘why not be a doctor?’,” recalled Sofchak. “She was constantly challenging me to think about the things I could accomplish as a woman.”
Sofchak noted that her mother even named her in a way that could aid her with job applications.
“My mom purposefully named my sister and I with gender neutral names, so I could put Kris on a resume, and my sister could put Casey,” said Sofchak. “She wanted us to be judged on our merits, not because we’re women.”
Sofchak was inspired in the 1980’s by women like Lynn Rippelmeyer, who became the first woman to fly the Boeing 747 and in 1984 became the first woman to serve as captain.
“I heard about women making history in aviation while I was in school, and I told my guidance counselor that I wanted to be a pilot,” said Sofchak. “He said that girls couldn’t be pilots.”
A chance encounter put Sofchak on a path towards a career in aviation.
“My mother took us to Great Adventure, and there was an AH-1 Cobra static display there. I knew I wanted to work with Cobras,” said Sofchak.
She went to her high school guidance counselor, and told him she was going to join the Army National Guard.
Sofchak enlisted in the New Jersey Army National Guard as a helicopter mechanic, and soon was running maintenance teams on the hangar floor.
“I was working on a helicopter one day, when a supervisor of mine, a male, told me I hit the glass ceiling. I was confused about what he meant,” said Sofchak. “He said that I was going to climb as high as I could go on that ladder; that I could see the rest of the path, but I could never get there. I was angry.”
After twelve years as an enlisted maintenance Soldier, her dream of flying was realized when she became a helicopter pilot.
As a young pilot, she found herself going from the lush Pine Barrens of N.J. to the dangerous skies over Iraq.
“I was scared at first, but the more missions we did, the better it got,” said Sofchak. “We were doing the air assault mission, taking Soldiers right to compounds to pick up high value targets.”
She is the New Jersey Army National Guard’s first female maintenance test pilot.
“I love what I do, and I just want little girls out there to know that this is something they can do too,” said Sofchak.
And that supervisor that told Sofchak she hit the glass ceiling?
“I saw my old supervisor after I came back from flight training, and he was really happy for me. He said I didn’t hit the glass ceiling, I broke right through it!”
| Date Taken: | 03.12.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 03.12.2018 15:21 |
| Story ID: | 269058 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY, US |
| Hometown: | JACKSON, NEW JERSEY, US |
| Web Views: | 115 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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