Women Advancing the Future of Aviation

In this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we take a break from deep dives on the latest aviation technologies and trends to focus on people shaping the future of aerospace.

Host Adam Kress is joined by four inspiring women from Honeywell Aerospace Technologies—leaders in business and engineering—who share their insights and career journeys in a field still largely dominated by men.

From these women finding mentorship to overcoming challenges, this is an episode you don’t want to miss. 

Episode Highlights:

• Career Paths & Passion for Aviation: How each guest discovered their path to aerospace and carved out their career.
• Challenges & Triumphs: Learn about their personal experiences navigating the industry, overcoming obstacles, and finding confidence.
• Lessons Learned & Future Outlook: Hear key takeaways and advice from their career journeys plus, what excites them about the future of aviation.

Transcript

Adam Kress:

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Aerospace Unplugged. I'm your host, Adam Kress. Today on the podcast, we're not focusing on the latest aviation technology, or even a hot trend within the industry. Instead, we're putting the focus today on people. I'm super excited to be joined today by four women from Honeywell Aerospace Technologies. These leaders in business and engineering are going to tell us all about how they've navigated impressive careers in a field where men still hold a sizable majority. We're going to touch on topics like mentorship, the tough challenges these women have overcome, as well as the delicate and frankly, sometimes impossible balance between work and family.

Adam Kress:

So without further ado, I'd like to welcome in my four guests today. First we have Nichola Lubold, she's the Lead R&D engineer and scientist in Honeywell's Advanced Technology Division. Thanks for joining me today, Nichola.

Nichola Lubold:

Thank you for having me.

Adam Kress:

All right, next up is Heather Naboshek, she's the Director of Offering Management who oversees cockpit displays. Thank you, Heather, for joining.

Heather Naboshek:

It's great to be here.

Adam Kress:

All right, I'd like to also welcome in Sarah Weinhardt, she's the Director of Offering management for Honeywell's avionics team. Thanks Sarah, for coming.

Sarah Weinhardt:

Thank you.

Adam Kress:

And finally, we have Tina Hynes. She's a Chief Engineer from our Advanced and Applied Technology team. Tina, thanks for joining us.

Tina Hynes:
Very happy to be here.

Adam Kress:

All right, let's jump right in then. So the first thing I'd like to ask each guest is simply, how did you get into aviation? I have some people were born and raised AV geeks, other people just kind of stumbled into it and oftentimes fall in love. So, what about you?

Nichola Lubold:

Um, I am definitely one of those people that stumbled into it. I was not an AV geek, I definitely maybe had dreams of being an astronaut because I was a sci-fi space nerd. But yeah, I was always more interested in programming. My undergraduate degree was in computer engineering, and I never saw the overlap really, which is crazy, because there's a lot of overlap between programming and aviation.

After my PhD, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I actually had some really great mentors and people in my life who were like, "You know what? You look at complex interactions between people and semi-intelligent, intelligent machines. Pilots and aviation aircraft. These are one of the most fascinating types of human-computer interactions you can look at." So I had some really great guidance to say, "Hey, look at aviation," and then I ended up at Honeywell. People also took a risk on me, somebody who didn't have a lot of background in aviation to say, "Hey, maybe you can actually contribute something here," so.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, awesome. It seems like when that aviation bug bites you, it doesn't let go. So, glad you found it. 

Adam Kress:

Heather, what about you? How'd you get into aviation?

Heather Naboshek:

So, my father was an engineer and he encouraged me to go to engineering. And so I got my degree at University of Arizona, and in my senior year I started doing an Arizona Capstone senior project with Honeywell down in Tucson. And it was through materials engineering and working with our advanced tech team. And so I kind of just applied to Honeywell and learned about all of the different engineering that goes into aerospace. So I'm not really a aerospace focused engineer, but it just kind of led me here, and then there's so many opportunities.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, it is. I think a lot of people at a company like Honeywell think, oh, it's just all aerospace engineers, but it's a wide variety of different types of engineers that we need from software to aerospace and many materials, lots of things to people.

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah.

Adam Kress:

Sarah, how about you?

Sarah Weinhardt:

Well, I think my aviation career probably, I got the bug a little bit earlier. As a kid I was always fascinated in airplanes and I was also fascinated in how things worked. So, I would take things apart at home, I would build these elaborate villages and build this stuff. And it wasn't until I started looking at, what do I want to be when I grow up, and figuring out what college I wanted to go to, that I had a conversation with my dad around things I could do. And most of all my family is in medicine and I had always thought I would go that route. And he said to me, he said, "You have such a three-dimensional way of looking at problems and being able to create solutions when others don't see it." He's like, "Why don't you go to be an architect or engineering?" And then he said, "Or aeronautics," and it just suddenly sparked this desire in aviation.

So, I went to an aviation school, Embry-Riddle in Prescott, and then became, and went to become an airline pilot, got all my certificates, flight instructor for a few years. And then I was working in the industry and kind of got recruited into Honeywell to come run one of our services businesses. And like Heather said, I absolutely love the opportunities you have to do all these different things. It's an area of the field I never knew existed when I was even in college.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, that's fantastic. Tina, what about you? How'd you find aviation?

Tina Hynes:

So, when I was trying to pick a degree to take out of high school, I really had no idea what engineering was. There was no engineers in my family, no engineers in my network. In fact, I look back, I don't even think I knew a single engineer. But the subjects I enjoyed the most were math and physics and I was always fascinated by space and space exploration. So, aerospace engineering seemed to be a good fit so I took a leap. I didn't really know what I was getting into, but it seemed to be the thing that aligned with what I enjoyed and what I was passionate about. So, I decided to do aerospace engineering.

Adam Kress:

Where'd you go to school?

Tina Hynes:

University of Toronto.

Adam Kress:

Okay. All right, excellent. So then from there, well, let's transition kind of into what you all are doing now in your day jobs. And Tina, we'll just start with you. What are you focused on at the moment? What are your main responsibilities?

Tina Hynes:

So, I am a chief engineer in the Mechanical Chiefs Organization, which means I have technical responsibility for a number of different engine product families. So, what do I do day-to-day? It changes every day. So, I could be working with a team for a part supplier transition. I could be working with a customer looking at a field issue and going through a root cause corrective action process. I could be reviewing and approving certifications documents for a new engine program. I could be working on request for information or request for proposal for a potential new product or a new application for one of our engines. And then also, I take a big part of my time and focus it towards mentorship as well. So any one of those things I could be doing day to day. So my days are very fast-paced and super interesting with a great team of people that I work with.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, it sounds interesting and quite complex as well. Sarah, I know we've worked together a good amount over the years around avionics and our next generation avionics. So, what are you focused on at the moment?

Sarah Weinhardt:

So today I'm a Director of Offering Management in the avionics business. I primarily focus on the strategic direction for our general aviation product, but more and more I've been very involved in kind of that same concept of the strategic direction and technologies to invest in customer interactions, really with the broader Honeywell Anthem avionics. One of the parts of the job that I love the most is being able to interact with all the different groups of people, whether it's suppliers or customers, partners and our engineers and help look at, what do we need to do to develop to be able to solve that problem for that customer or for the industry? And so, that's kind of the area that I really focus in mostly in avionics team.

Adam Kress:

And Heather, you're focused on avionics as well too. Are you talking to customers as well, or kind of?

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah, very similar to Sarah. So my day-to-day, since I'm an offering director for displays product line, is just making sure that we're executing on our P&L. Sarah and I both own a P&L for our product lines and our goals are just around, how do you meet your AOP? How do you make revenue for Honeywell? How do you maintain gross margin? And similar to Tina, any day could be totally different. There's never a day that's the same around here, and so, but the best part is just being part of a team. You're part of everybody's team because you're the GB, you're the business that's driving it, and everyone's executing on your roadmap, both either short-term or long term. So, it's really fun to see.

Adam Kress:

Yeah. Okay. Nichola, tell me a little bit about what you do on the day-to-day, what you're focused on.

Nichola Lubold:

Yeah, so I'm an engineering scientist, but definitely more on the scientist side than the engineer side. My team works on early concepts, early technologies. Essentially, we look at identifying and solving problems where you're not going to see it tomorrow, but if things work out, you might see it in a few years, you might see it in five years, it might even be further, like 10 years. We tend to work more with external organizations like DARPA, IARPA, the DOD, the FAA, on occasion. Hopefully everybody knows what the FAA is. And that usually for me, I focus on problems that are related to people, as I mentioned earlier, interacting with technology.

So we look at what we call the human in the loop. So this could be a pilot, it could be air traffic controller, it could be some kind of other operator. And we're really interested in particularly how we enhance performance, how we use technology to improve how people interact with that technology. And today, I think we're mostly focused on technology that adapts to people. So typically, we tend to adapt to our technology, and what we're looking at is technology that accommodates for people going forward, being able to use some of the cool stuff that you're seeing come out and make interactions better.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, I guess follow up question to that. If you're talking about tinkering with technologies that could be five or 10 years down the road, how do you even come up with that and start to think about, oh, well, maybe we should start dabbling in this?

Nichola Lubold:

Yeah, a lot of it is being creative. It's also paying attention to what's going on outside of aviation. A lot of times, ideas will come that have nothing to do with aircraft in the first place, or with aerospace or even with space. And you think, oh, well maybe if we applied it in this way to our problems, it would be a way that we could solve something.

So, an example is we're working on a project that is to convert an anonymized speech, but this particular project is currently nothing to do with aerospace. However, we see applications with improving air traffic control transmissions, being able to improve intelligibility. So if you can convert speech real time, there's applications both within and outside of aerospace. So when we try to look for ideas, we do a lot of reading of scientific papers, we do a lot of work on problems that may or may not eventually make their way to a product. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, great. Okay. Let's shift gears just a little bit and talk a little bit more about some personal experiences you guys have had throughout your careers. Tell me about the biggest challenge maybe you've overcome as women in a traditionally male-dominated field. And Sarah, maybe we start with you.

Sarah Weinhardt:

Yeah, so this one's a little bit tricky because I've actually encountered this question several times when I've done panel interviews or one-on-one mentorship, because the one thing that I feel like I've always been challenged with is in a business role, I'm sitting across the table from C-suite people, higher-ups either internally in the company or partners. And you have that thought of, do I really belong here? It's like, how did I get in this room? And so, one of the challenges I always face, especially early on in the career is, realizing that I do belong there and that I need to be there.

And the second part of that is I feel like as women in this industry, we tend to feel like there are only so many seats at that table for women. And I really don't believe that's true at all, and feel like part of my responsibility as a leader is to help bring them all and bring along the people with me beside me and let them feel like they also belong.

Adam Kress:

Excellent. Tina, what would you say?

Tina Hynes:

I definitely agree with that. I think when I look back, when I started at Honeywell 27 years ago, there was many meetings and teams where I certainly was the only female in the room. Now, 27 years in, that's changed a lot and it's super exciting. So I think yeah, it's definitely part of my responsibility going forward to mentor and to encourage others to join and be part of this industry. So yeah, I think I've definitely experienced that as well in that time period, but things are getting better, numbers are better. I'm rarely the only woman in the room now.

Adam Kress:

That's great. Heather, what would you say, in terms of a big challenge you've overcome?

Heather Naboshek:

I think it was very similar to Sarah's experience, of feeling like you belong and feeling like you have a seat at the table, and not always just coming into a room and sitting against the wall. I think we all used to do that early in our careers because you didn't know if that seat was for you. And now if I sit against the wall, it's because I want to sit against the wall.

Adam Kress:

Strategic reasons, right?

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah. I don't question if it's because I belong or if I'm meant to be there, it's, oh, that's a comfier chair and I'd like to sit in that one. Or if I'm going to take a seat at the table, it's because I want to contribute and I want to be in part of that meeting. And just knowing that my feelings are valid and my ideas are valid is a, maybe it's not specific to women, it's maybe everybody as they grow and get more comfortable in themselves. But I think women are a little bit more cognizant of it because there's not as many of us there and you feel like you need to represent all of us.

Adam Kress:

Yeah.

Nichola Lubold:

Yeah, I would say that imposter syndrome is initially been linked to being a woman's problem, but I'm not sure that it is specifically a female-only issue. For me though, while that was a challenge, I had a bigger issue with respect in the beginning. So, I used the word like just now, and I absolutely had a valley girl accent for a little while when I first started out. And that was something that a mentor told me, "You need to learn how to speak more confidently, you need to learn how to not end your sentences on a high note." And it was really interesting to me that I had to somewhat change how I spoke in order to come across as somebody who knew what she was talking about and giving off that confidence. And part of that comes with age, right? Part of that comes just with getting older. Part of it comes with trying to understand how people perceive you.

So again, I don't think that that's a female problem, but understanding how other people view you is a challenge that I think we forget that we need to address sometimes, because we don't always pay attention. We think, oh, this is who I am. Obviously, you see me as I am, but sometimes that doesn't always come across. So for me, that was a challenge trying to figure out and it still is. Trying to figure out, how do I communicate in such a way that both what I want you to understand and what I want you to walk away with is what you actually understand and walk away with?

Sarah Weinhardt:
I feel like every person I've spoken to at some point in their career has experienced imposter syndrome. I fight it all the time, just like you were talking about. And it's what leads a lot of us to being afraid to say no, being afraid to speak up, because you have that fear of, do I really belong here? Am I good enough? But, and so it's something I still fight with every day. And it's the self-reflecting I was talking about of being able to understand where my strengths are, weaknesses are, things that I can do to go improve weaknesses, and utilize my strengths to maybe help myself or help others and to help myself grow. But I think it's something that everybody hits at some point in their career.

Heather Naboshek:

Do you think it's specific to just women?

Sarah Weinhardt:

No, absolutely not.

Heather Naboshek:

Or do you think it's early career versus later in your career?

Sarah Weinhardt:

I think I personally, I feel I experienced it more earlier in the career, especially when it came into Honeywell, because I was around so many absolutely incredible people. I was used to kind of being one of the smartest people in the room, and then you came here and it's like, oh my God, everybody here is just at a whole top level and you felt like you didn't belong. But as I got older, I kind of realized it grew more and more. But I think it's definitely not only a female thing, I think it's just manifests itself in females differently, especially in an industry where even though it has improved, I still walk into the room and half the time I'm the only woman. Which I do note, but I love it when there's more and you can't help but count.

Heather Naboshek:

Well, it's funny because I was in a meeting, I think it was a couple days ago, and it was all females and someone said, "Hey, I'd like to pause and take a moment. This is an all-female meeting." And I was like, “yes, women power, we're doing this.” And I said, "But you know what I would like to also pause and say, why did we have to say that?" Because I don't think that our counterparts are saying, "Hey, I paused, it's an all-male meeting. We got this." Like, finally, we're all in a room together. So why did we have to say that? Why did we have to hold space for that? And I said, it made me sad, but it made me happy at the same time. So, it's like this challenge.

Adam Kress:

Did you say something at the time?

Heather Naboshek:

Oh, that's what I said. Exactly what I said to you is what I said to all these females, because it's all awesome that we're all there, but we shouldn't have to say, "Hey, this is really cool that we've all done it."

Adam Kress:

Yeah, so I'm thinking through how mentors, bosses, managers, whoever, provide productive feedback as opposed to unproductive feedback. It sounds like with whatever the valley girl thing, you got productive feedback that was useful, but where is the line between useful and probably shouldn't be commenting on this?

Tina Hynes:

I think intention, right?

Adam Kress:

Oh, okay.

Tina Hynes:

If you're trying to help somebody, if you're trying to give them advice, and people can choose to follow that advice or not, but if your intention is good and you have the other person's interests put first when you give that advice, I think that's a fair comment to make. Right? You're trying to give advice to help somebody.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, and you [Nichola] felt like that was your experience?

Nichola Lubold:

Yeah, I mean, it was hard advice to accept to a certain degree, right, because you feel initially like, well, are you trying to change who I am? But on the flip side, it came from a good place.

Tina Hynes

Right.

Nichola Lubold:

Right?

Adam Kress:

Yeah.

Nichola Lubold:

Her place, the person who gave me this feedback, was that she was seeing people not take me seriously because I came across as not confident in what I was saying. Not all feedback you're going to get is going to be easy to hear, but that doesn't make it not valid and it doesn't make what the person told you less important. I do think intention is important. I also think you have to maybe ignore the intention and also just listen to what they said and then evaluate for yourself, is that something that does have a grain of truth to it that I should listen to?

Adam Kress:

Yeah, and that-

Heather Naboshek:

And maybe-

Adam Kress:

Oh, go ahead.

Heather Naboshek:

It also could be the time and how they present it to you. If you don't do it in front of everybody to give that kind of feedback, and you have to really have that relationship with your mentor to accept it and to say, "Oh, I understand your intentions, and I'm going to try and fix how other people perceive me." So, I don't know.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, it's a challenge because I think people naturally if they hear some criticism about themselves, you may have a defensive reaction, right? And the reflection, the self-reflection is the harder part. And especially in a professional setting too, it's like we all want to achieve, we all want to do well and perform, but at times it may really require a change in some sort of behavior, right? Because if others are perceiving you as that, sometimes the perception is just the reality, right? But you have the power to change.

Sarah Weinhardt:

Yeah, but I think as the leader, as yourself, trying to always be open to that, being receptive of feedback and seeking it in appropriate times. When you have the opportunity with either peers that you respect and you've just recently presented, maybe aside at lunch, asking them about, “how do you think I did? I feel like I stuttered at this, I felt really nervous,” and getting some of that candid feedback and really thinking about it. I mean, as I've grown in my career, kind of self-reflecting on those exact same types of things, because I traditionally hated presenting when I first came here, hated talking on the phone. And it takes a lot of effort to yourself, recognize how you can potentially grow and to seek help from others.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, I think having work buddies, having people you could bounce things off of to get to that more casual feedback like, "Hey, for real, how was it? How did I do?" Is helpful, but you also have to take the initiative to ask someone or else you'll just simply never know. And then you're may be just wondering. What do you guys think about a hard lesson that you've had to learn along the way? Maybe something that really taught you something, in any aspect of your career.

Sarah Weinhardt:

So kind of what I was getting at before, I grew up very, very shy, afraid to even call somebody on the phone. And of course, then coming to Honeywell and I had to, everything is on the phone. It was very scary and I did not want to speak up. And so, most of my educational career, my getting into early career, I was always just so afraid to speak up. Even though in school I had the answer to basically every question, I would never raise my hand. And it took me a lot of personal effort to say, "I can't exceed in business, I can't exceed in my career if I don't get over this." And really, focused on saying the things I needed to say and not being embarrassed about what somebody would think about it or being a stupid question.

And I'm happy that it's gotten to the point now where I'm not afraid, ask what some may perceive as a stupid question in the room, realizing there's others who are like, I was afraid to ask that. Thank you for asking it. And so that's an area where I struggled so much in the beginning, of having the confidence of just speaking up.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, that's hard for a lot of people I think, especially when they're new in a job. But in all honestly, I never would've guessed that about you. I've known you for a while and I don't consider you a shy wallflower or anything. Heather, what do you think? Like a tough challenge or lesson learned?

Heather Naboshek:

So for me it was maybe just the switch from COVID to back in the office was really hard. So, I had my kids pre-COVID and post-COVID actually, but just having that change from being, I was a mom at home for a year and yes, I was working at Honeywell at the same time, you never took a break, but you were home a lot of the time. And then you come back into Honeywell and you are in person a lot and I was so used to the work from home environment, the videos and all of that stuff. So, changing and getting into more, you got to go in the office, you got to interact with everybody, and then especially as you get into the business and everyone's in the office and your customers are here and you're meeting them in person and you can't just hide behind your computer. So, being able to make that switch was kind of hard for me.

Adam Kress:

Was there anything that helped you make the switch or things you did to kind of get over it?

Heather Naboshek:

Tough love.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, at the end of the day, you just got to do it. Go get in the car and go in and yeah, sometimes it's as simple as that even if you don't necessarily, if you're not feeling it that day, you do it anyway.

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah, my husband always just tells me, "Every day is going to be a hard day and you just keep going and going and going and then eventually you'll reach the goal."

Adam Kress:
Yeah, perseverance, for sure. Nichola, how about you?

Nichola Lubold:

I haven't really learned this one yet, but saying no. Learning when to do something and knowing that it is okay to push back on things. I am one of those, not everybody is this way, but I am absolutely one of those people who is always wanting to say yes. I always want to do whatever it is, I'm a jump in feet first kind of person, that's not always a good thing. So learning to say no or just learning to think about, do you really want to do this? Is this something that will be, that you can handle with other things that are going on? Prioritizing, that's been a hard lesson to learn. And again, I have not entirely learned it, so.

Adam Kress:

Tina, how about you?

Tina Hynes:

So earlier in my career, because I've got this now, it was delegation. It was very hard for me to give tasks or give away pieces of what I considered my project, what I owned, to other people. So, that was really difficult. And I'm a yes person too, so I would take on a lot of different things, and then it would be very hard for me to, it's be like giving up my children. I didn't want that.

Nichola Lubold:

I get that too. I'm totally 100% the same way. Delegating is still a lesson I'm learning.

Tina Hynes:

So yes, I had to learn how to do that to survive, right? Because you can't say yes to all the stuff and then just be the sole person doing it. So I had to learn how to delegate tasks and give up that piece of it and trust the people, because they're awesome and more than capable. But it took me a while to learn that.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, any particular tips or strategies or is it again, just a tough love thing?

Tina Hynes:

Tough love. You just got to jump, you got to go and do it. The people you work with I'm sure are a great team of people. You have to trust them, and it's also giving them an opportunity to grow, right? So you have to be able to do that. It's just, it didn't come naturally.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The flip side I think on the delegation is when you do give a people or person something and then it's like, oh my goodness, well, they knocked it out of the park. I should be doing that more, right?

Tina Hynes:

Yeah, exactly.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, a good way to grow strong teams.

Nichola Lubold:

I think with all of these, the key thing is practice, right?

Adam Kress:

Yep.

Tina Hynes:

Yep, yep.

Nichola Lubold:

Just, you have to know that it's something that you need to learn and the only way you're going to learn it is by doing it.

Tina Hynes:

Yep, definitely.

Adam Kress:

Okay. Do you guys think there's any specific skills or important experiences you think are essential for women to succeed, specifically in aviation today?
 
 

Adam Kress:
I mean, what are the types of experiences that they could have, or, and I'm not talking about go to this school or go to that school. But just things they should know to help get them prepared for a career specifically in aviation.

Sarah Weinhardt:

So I feel, and this isn't just for young women trying to get into the industry, it's really anybody who's trying to explore where they want to go with their life and their career. They should get involved in the programs that may be offered either through their school or the local college, industry, and seek out mentorships. Because I've recently, I never did this as a kid, I never would go out and ask for help. Kind of like what we were talking about before, I always tried to do everything myself and internalize. And I've realized now in the role I'm at here is, I really enjoy having the conversations with young students and I mean, the excitement that they have and the energy around where they're going and the questions are often so insightful, where I also think about it myself. And so, I wish I had had or taken advantage of that when I was younger to just learn more about directions I could have gone in. I learned mostly just by doing and kind of fumbling into it, versus having a little bit of a better picture of, what else is out there?

Adam Kress:

Maybe I'll ask the rest of you from a skills perspective. And I know in aviation, if you include defense as well, it's super varied, you just look at Honeywell, there's so many things we do. But what are good core skill sets or life lessons that people should have as they're trying to get into aviation?

Nichola Lubold:

I have two. One is being able to break down a problem. So, don't get overwhelmed by a problem, try to pick it apart. So, you already had Sarah say go ask for help, go find people, make connections. They can also help you with that, but I would say as a skill, trying to break problems into smaller pieces that you can then delegate or do yourself.

The other thing is I am a yes person, I already said this, so take this with a grain of salt, but don't let fear make a reason for not doing something or trying something. I'm not going to say, because I used to say, "Don't be afraid to go try something." That's a stupid piece of advice because you're going to be afraid, you can't get rid of the fear. Acknowledge the fact that you are afraid and do it anyway, right? Or, acknowledge that you're afraid and why you're afraid and maybe you make the decision not to do it, but really try to decide, is it because I'm scared? Why am I scared? And then maybe that'll allow you to actually try it and go do it. And I think that's both a skill, as well as a life-

Adam Kress:

Mindsets, kind of, right?

Heather Naboshek:

I always say to myself before I do something, you can do hard things. You can go and do something that's difficult and it's not going to be difficult the next time. So, it's just a little mantra that I always have to tell myself before going and doing something I'm scared. I just say, "You can do hard things. You've got this."

Nichola Lubold:

Yeah.

Adam Kress:

That's good advice. Tina, what do you think any key skills or experiences that just set people off for success in aviation?

Tina Hynes:

So yeah, so having confidence, being resilient. We all are going to have setbacks and failures, that's just life. So then, how do you deal with it, right? Having that stick with it type attitude, so that if something doesn't go right, you know what? You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going. So, you've got to be resilient.

Sarah Weinhardt:

I think another skill that often comes as you are really involved in various parts of your education is really gaining an empathy for the people you're working with and maybe the person sitting across the table from you that you're negotiating with. Understanding, kind of into what you're saying about breaking down a problem, understanding or trying to help reflect on, why is that person here? What is their objective in this collaboration? How can we work together to be able to create a solution? And if you come at basically any type of negotiation or problem in that stance and you come at it from, why are they here, what are they looking at? You can find a solution a lot faster. So, it's a skill that some have naturally and some really need to make sure that when they're approaching a situation, they're able to kind of stop, look outside, and look around at, why are we here, what are we trying to do? And not so focused on my objective and what I want to do.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, I think that's really interesting because culturally here in a lot of ways, we tend to get laser focused on things. Right?

Sarah Weinhardt:

Yes.

Adam Kress:

But being able to, like you said, step back and understand where you think people's motivations are, that's a conscious thing you have to stop-

Sarah Weinhardt:

Yeah, why are they coming to me for that question and it's an emergency? What's really driving this, because I've got this action, and then being able to work together on getting it solved, it removes the tension.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, I would say too, that could be with external people, customers, or other people you work with who suddenly are coming to you with their hair on fire. But it's like, well, really, really what's going on here? And I think early in your career, and I think of myself and people I used to work with. You had no concept that people had families and sick kids or aging parents or any of that stuff. The outside stressors that I think the longer you work, the older you get, the more you do naturally empathize with people because you start going through some of it yourself.

Sarah Weinhardt:

Yeah.

Adam Kress:

We touched on mentorship earlier. Tell me a little bit more about why that's important.

Heather Naboshek:

I think it's very women focused, is getting the right mentors to support you and to sponsor you.

Sarah Weinhardt:

Also, I think it's something that Honeywell has actually started to do a lot more, getting the, I don't remember what the program they call it, but it's essentially the new... When you first come in, the young professionals and getting them paired up with mentors. That's something that didn't exist when I first started or in any of the jobs I had previously. And it's something I think that we should take more advantage of, just because I as a mentor learned so much by talking with people, but then also, what would I have been able to get? I wish more people had advantage of that.

Tina Hynes:

Well, and Honeywell is also doing a lot of stuff here in the valley with going to high schools and reaching out to kids and being involved in their engineering classes to give them guidance on projects. So, I've been volunteering at some high schools and some activities like that, like SWE, going and talking to people so that they're even aware that these career possibilities exist. Because a lot of people, if they don't have a role model, if they don't have someone in the family, if they don't have that exposure, they mightn't be aware of these opportunities. So, I think getting involved with kids in high school or even younger to kind of just expose them to what the possibilities are.

Sarah Weinhardt:

Yeah, that I completely agree with because when I grew up, I was in a very agricultural environment in the small town, and I didn't even know engineers existed.

Tina Hynes:

Yeah, me neither.

Sarah Weinhardt:

And nobody the school really talked about it.

Tina Hynes:

No.

Sarah Weinhardt:

It would've been nice to have some resources on that.

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah, and I think mentoring, you know, being able to see yourself in a leader and getting that one-on-one time with some of our leaders or outside our industry, and it really helps grow any women's career. So I just think-

Nichola Lubold:

I have a question, though. How many of you have actually leveraged a mentor through a mentorship program versus a mentor that you ended up kind of just stumbling upon?

Sarah Weinhardt:

Most of all of mine have been the latter. I've just stumbled upon someone started getting advice and reached out to them regularly. I don't think I've ever actually been involved in a formal program.

Nichola Lubold:

Yeah.

Heather Naboshek:

I think 50/50 for me. I always like to seek a new mentor every year because I think getting different opinions helps you grow. So, and I always ask whoever my manager is, "Could you set me up with a mentor? Could you ask somebody who's outside my network to take some time and talk to me monthly?"

Tina Hynes:

And for me being a mentor, I've done both informal and through formal channels, so.

Adam Kress:

I wanted to ask a question, how do now looking at where you all are in your career, do you have to wait for younger folks to come to you and ask for your mentorship or do you reach out as well and take a person under your wing?

Nichola Lubold:

It's mostly happened organically for me. So, either somebody asks me to help out with something and I meet somebody there who I start mentoring and vice... We have some kind of relationship that is along those lines. So it is usually something again that you kind of stumble upon. Not that I go seek out doing it or somebody seeks me out, but.

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah, I think I'm very similar. It's, if you see somebody and you see something in yourself in them, and I might say, "Hey, come to my office. Let's talk for an hour. I want to understand where your career is going and I want to help with whatever capacity I can help." And then that might just turn into meeting them more frequently.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, just putting some structure around it.

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah.

Sarah Weinhardt:

Most of mine have been fairly formally set up, but the one thing I really like to articulate to people is that your career is not linear. And you had talked about, take advantage of every opportunity you have, and I totally echo that. You just never know it's right around the corner if you jump on this opportunity, especially when you're young, because you can take those risks. You can jump into things that maybe you didn't think you would love and find out you actually do love it or maybe you really don't. But that was, it all helped you become a better leader. And in my career, I've actually shifted careers all in aviation, but shifted careers two times or I guess I'm on the third. And I've had students when I've gone to schools ask, "How did you go from being a pilot and a certified flight instructor to now running a business in Honeywell?" You know, it's a challenging question to answer, but it's really, I jumped at every opportunity and had fun every time I did it.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, well like you said earlier, you figured it out as you go, right?

Sarah Weinhardt:

Yeah.

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah, and it's actually funny, because I got into my job because I had a conversation with Sarah. Because, and I had to ask her, I said, "Sarah, can I have some of your time because they're asking me to come apply to this role and I don't know if I'm ready." And Sarah took time out of her day and said, "Yeah, here's the benefits of this job and here's the hard things about this job," and it made me a little bit more confident when I was applying for this role.

Tina Hynes:

And one of the things I say to people I mentor is, "It's good to think about your next steps. What do you want to do for your next role and your next role?" But then be open, because opportunities can come that you don't even think about and it might be a good fit. And also there's nothing wrong with taking a role, taking on an opportunity and then realizing it's not a good fit, right? That's not an end, that's just another learning opportunity.

Sarah Weinhardt:

I've been asked several times by mentees or in a panel interview once where somebody said, "How do I get my dream job out of college?" And I'm like, "You don't want it, because you don't know what it is." Take advantage of every opportunity and learn, because you're going to think you want something. Now, some people are laser focused and they have it. My husband's one of those, he wanted to be an airline pilot since he was four, but most aren't. And so if you take advantage, you'll learn different things and you'll end up someplace you never imagined. And every time you jump, you learn something new, whether you learn what not to do or what to do, and yeah.

Tina Hynes:

And even learning what you don't like is still learning.

Sarah Weinhardt:

It's valuable, very valuable.

Adam Kress:

All right. Looking back at your guys' career journeys, what would you tell your 20-year-old self if you could give them some advice?

Sarah Weinhardt:

This kind of goes into something I said earlier, is I'd tell myself to speak up, that you know a lot and you have good ideas. Don't be afraid to vocalize them, and because I feel like some of the opportunities I may have had when I was younger, I was really hesitant to jump into it.

And I mean, to the other side of it is, the advice I'd give myself is, you cannot do it all. You need to be open to ask for help and to delegate. And that not only gets you help to solve that particular immediate problem, it also allows you to be able to see another person's perspective, or maybe get a thought partner that actually inspires you and you can get your work done so much faster than if you sat there staring at the computer for an hour. That's something I wish when I was younger I would have taken advantage of the people who wanted to help me, so that I could have gotten, been more effective, more productive and learned from them.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, sometimes it's hard too, I think when you're young to even realize that, oh, that person is actually just trying to help me. You know what I mean? They're not just, and it could be anyone you work with that maybe you're not directly involved with them in terms of their job. But I think sometimes, especially when people are younger, they don't even recognize that the hand that's being offered to them. But you have to be open to it yourself to be able to take it in.

Sarah Weinhardt:

But I also know, so when I first came to Honeywell, I felt like, I felt like I had to prove why I was here. And I realized that that's an area where I probably didn't need to as much or maybe I did, but being able to work with some of the people closer and get to know them a little bit more personally. It was able to help me have more confidence that I did deserve to be there.

Adam Kress:

Yeah. Tina, what would you say? What would you tell your 20-year-old self?

Tina Hynes:

Wow, I don't think my 20-year-old self would've seen me here. Looking back, I would say, just take advantage of every opportunity, say yes to almost everything. Yeah, don't be hesitant, go for it. Just take advantage of all the opportunities that are presented in front of you and it's going to be exciting.

Adam Kress:

Heather, what would you say?

Heather Naboshek:

I would say that you don't have to know things you haven't learned yet. So, I think Sarah says, "Hey, I need to come here and improve myself." I felt very different. I felt like, I've got time. A career is a long time and I can just sit in this one job for a couple of years and learn it and then go to the next one. But it's always that transition when you move to that next job that you're like, everybody expects me to know everything and you don't. And I think it's okay not to know anything, but once you learn it, you should help other people learn that same skill that you have or whatever it is so you can give back and build up other people. So, just accepting that you don't know everything. You know?

Adam Kress:

Yeah, that's very well put. And yeah, there's that natural nervousness whenever you start anything too, but to just in a healthy way, acknowledge like, I don't know about this, I'm new. And then you lean on other people and your team to bring in you along and then hopefully retain it, based along to others. Nichola, what would you say?

Nichola Lubold:

Mine's a little different. I would tell myself that it's okay to go get that PhD. When I was 20, I had a lot of self-doubt about whether or not I was smart enough to go get my PhD, and that was really not smart in retrospect. I was totally, I could have done it. So, I would tell myself, yeah, you can go do it and you should go do it and you should go do it sooner, and I ended up actually going and doing it.

Heather Naboshek:

I had a very similar thing, because I did, I got my MBA, but I did it a little bit after I got into Honeywell and I had to say, oh, I could go get a master's degree. It's not that big of a deal, it just takes work. Gosh.

Nichola Lubold:

Yeah, and once you have it, those credentials help a lot.

Heather Naboshek:

Yeah.

Adam Kress:

Cool. So we looked back a little bit, let's look forward now. Talk a little bit about the future. What are you all working on today that gets you excited about what's to come in aviation? Tina, maybe we start with you.

Tina Hynes:

So kind of for engines, new trends would be things that have to do with sustainability, reducing carbon footprint, say hydrogen, uncrewed air vehicles. Those type of applications are going to present a lot of opportunities for new and improved products and really change the whole transportation industry. And I'm excited for where it's going to move in the next five to 10 years. There's a lot of things happening right now.

Adam Kress:

Excellent. Sarah, what would you say?
 
 

Sarah Weinhardt:

Well, as a kind of product leader, what I really enjoy about the job is being able to actually explore this question of, what are the technologies that interest me? What are the things that could change my products in the future? What do I need to be scared about or looking into? And one of the things I like to do, especially on the avionics side is pay close attention to what's happening in automotive, particularly around all the innovation or the really push on the user-centric designs when it comes to user interfaces.

And I mean, there are so many examples out there in every vehicle you go to and they're iterating on them so fast right now. How is that going to come in and change avionics and how people fly an airplane? There's all the reduced crew operations, simplified vehicle operations, things that are... Autonomy pieces, how is, I like to look at the automotive and other types of industries like that where they're making these innovations where they can in a less restricted environment and thinking about how we can get that into aviation. And also weighing out what's a trend versus trend and a fad versus something that could really be a safety-focused feature. So, some of that type of technology is really fascinating to me, specifically on the job I do right now.

Adam Kress:

Okay. Heather, what gets you excited about the future of aviation?

Heather Naboshek:

Very similar to Sarah on enhanced flight decks. Our Anthem cockpit is so intuitive and user-friendly, so making it, flying a little bit more accessible to people who might have been scared to be pilots. Now it doesn't, if you go in a simulation right now, I can even land it and I feel like that's pretty good for myself because I'm not a pilot. And then also, I've spent 10 years in advanced tech, so looking at just the new technologies that are out there and how that's just going to evolve in new planes really gets me excited. And then of course, just working with women on this panel and just, those ideas that we're coming up with, I just think it's going to be such a cool future.

Adam Kress:

Nichola, since you are in advanced tech and like you discussed earlier, you are looking way out in the future. So, I don't know, blow our minds with something that might be coming five or 10 years down the line.

Nichola Lubold:

Oh, wow, pressure, out the pressure there. I think that we haven't mentioned as much AI, but I do think that you're going to see that get incorporated and explored a lot more into aircraft over the next five to 10 years. And I do think it's a little bit further out because we do work in a much more restricted environment. So, how we can leverage all of that data to build aircraft that are going to be increasingly more intelligent, I think is something that is really exciting about the next five to 10 years.

I think somebody mentioned autonomous flight, right? So aircraft that really do most of the flying by themselves, but I think what's really fascinating about that is that we are still kind of pretty far away from that. If you look at self-driving cars for instance, we're just getting them, but there's still a lot of open questions about when you have a self-driving car and a human driven car. So I think where the future is going to be really interesting is where you have this overlap between planes that are flown by people and they're really easy to fly, and you have aircraft that are not flown by anyone, and how you navigate that. And how they communicate with each other in the same way that you have a autonomous vehicle that stops at a stop sign and it has to make a human-like gesture, right? There's a lot of open questions for us around what that looks like with aircraft.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, it's fascinating to think about. We're recording here from Phoenix and most of us work here and we see the autonomous Waymo vehicles all the time.

Tina Hynes:

All over.

Adam Kress:

And it is interesting to think the human versus the "robot interaction," because I think we all know drivers that aren't the best, and I see the Waymo's that they play by the rules, so.

Nichola Lubold:

I mean, just an example for you in regards to two pilot cockpits, right?

Adam Kress:

Yeah.

Nichola Lubold:

You have two people sitting there. One of the pilots goes to put their hand on the throttle. Depending on how they put their hand on the throttle, the other pilot knows they're going to accelerate or they're going to decelerate, right? Those aren't quite the right words, but bear with me. And so it's all nonverbal, it's all done just with a physical gesture, and the other pilot picks up on all the cues that are happening from just one movement. When you start to automate an aircraft and you start to have the aircraft do its own things, how do you share that kind of information? How do you communicate that kind of information? I think that's really exciting about the future for me.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, it's fascinating to think where it's all headed, but definitely in very, very cool and different directions when you talk about autonomy, advanced air mobility, engines and propulsion, all of it. All of it.

Sarah Weinhardt:

There's a side of that that we don't talk about as often. You touched on the AI piece, but it's the, in order to accomplish these things, we're talking about the massive amount of infrastructure and the connectivity needed. There's advancements that really are being made or need to continue to be made specifically in the cost it takes to carry data to and from an aircraft, because it's a much more restricted environment, it's harder to get to, and right now it's very expensive. And so as that cost starts to reduce, the amount of data we could share in real time where it needs to go and automate it, is going to significantly increase the opportunities in technology that we can introduce in aviation, but also improve safety as well.

Adam Kress:

Definitely.

Heather Naboshek:

And it'll probably also help with our engineering programs. So, making sure that they are using AI or they're using the automated tools can get us to a place where we're developing technology faster and implementing it faster.

Sarah Weinhardt:

There's all this new AI software for code generators and I know some people who are playing around with it, and I could go in and make an app right now if I really wanted to. Not that I would, but how is that going to shape our industry and what are the safety concerns when we're looking at an embedded software and highly certified environment? So, some of that stuff is what I like to really get involved in and read about.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, I think we could do a whole separate podcast with you guys on just the future of aviation and where it's all headed in the coolest areas. But I want to thank you each sincerely for joining me today. I have just one more question for each of you. We call the podcast Aerospace Unplugged, so when you guys unplug and you're not thinking about work or stressed out about anything, what do you like to do in your free time?

Heather Naboshek:

I like to go hiking. We all live in Arizona. We have great weather, great mountains. So, just getting outdoors and enjoying our nice weather when we can.

Adam Kress:

Do you like going up north or around the valley?

Heather Naboshek:

Oh, just around the valley. We've got plenty of mountains out here.

Adam Kress:

We do. Yeah, it's beautiful this time of year too. Sarah, what would you say?

Sarah Weinhardt:

Well, I like to spend my time, my husband spends most of our time at home. He's an airline pilot, so he's gone all the time. So, we'll spend most of our time at home with our two-year-old and new puppy, and it's a handful, but right now that pretty much occupies most of my time. Trying to get time away where we can go do golf or do some things with us now that she's a little bit older, but.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, yeah. The concept of true free time is not really on the table at the moment.

Sarah Weinhardt:

Not really, not right now.

Adam Kress:

Nope, I understand.

Sarah Weinhardt:

But it is incredible watching her just discover the world. Yeah, it's amazing.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, two-year-olds are something, for sure. Someone was saying earlier like, "Oh, at Honeywell, it's a new thing every day." I would say with a two-year-old, it's like 10 new things.

Sarah Weinhardt:

It's a new thing every day, yes.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, Tina, how do you like to kick back?

Tina Hynes:

So, I like to hike too. I do a lot of hiking, kind of just here in the valley. I like to read, I like to travel when I can, and then spend time with my kids, but they're at the other end of the spectrum. So, I have three sons who are 22, 19, and 17.

Adam Kress:

I'm sure they keep you busy, for sure.

Tina Hynes:

Yes.

Adam Kress:

Nichola, what would you say?

Nichola Lubold:

I mean, I got to add hiking in there too, obviously. I've been getting into pickleball. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm starting to like some pickleball. I think there's that joke, fastest growing sport in America. But yeah, I'm doing that. I have a dog, playing with my dog, go hiking.

Adam Kress:

Yeah, I have one of my sisters and then my sister-in-law in the past year have become pickleball obsessed. And it's fun, I've played. I played a lot of tennis growing up, but there's no doubt that it's catching on and it gets harder and harder to find courts, I've discovered.

Nichola Lubold:

Yeah, they're building a lot of facilities in the valley with indoor courts.

Adam Kress:

Yes. Yeah, if you know anything about Phoenix out there, listeners, you need indoor options, for sure, for sure. All right, well, Nichola, Heather, Sarah, Tina, thank you so much again for joining me today, it was really great conversation.

Adam Kress:

I want to thank all our guests out there listening as well. That wraps it up for today, so we'll catch you again on the next episode of Aerospace Unplugged.