National Aviation Day

Heather is a safety professional with 30 years of experience in aviation, dedicated to enhancing safety and fostering a strong safety culture across the industry. She spent 17 years as an air traffic control specialist before transitioning to academia, and now serves as an Assistant Professor in the Aviation Department at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where she teaches Flight Instructor, Human Factors, and Air Traffic Control courses to the university's 1,000+ aviation students. She holds a B.S. in Aeronautics from the University of North Dakota, where she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Aerospace, and an M.S. in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, graduating with distinction. A three-time NAFI Master Aviation Educator, she has logged over 1,100 flight hours across 61 aircraft types and has trained thousands of pilots through her FAA safety seminars, including her Operation Raincheck program, which has reached over 2,700 participants — work that has earned her the FAA Administrator's Safety Award and District FAA Safety Team Representative of the Year award. Alongside her teaching and research, she also works as a Flight Test Engineer on a NASA-funded project developing a protein dispenser for use in microgravity.