The Power of Networking
2010 Professional Women Controllers Scholarship winner
Rosely NetRefa
Thank you once again for the amazing scholarship. Let me tell you how I heard about the Professional Women Controllers Scholarship: I attended the Women in Aviation Conference in February 2010, and happened to meet Dolores Pavletic, a Fedex pilot who mentioned that besides the WAI
scholarships, there was an organization called PWC that offered
a scholarship to someone who desired a career in aviation (The
Jacque Smith Burdette Scholarship). Membership was not even
required (but remember, I might never have heard of the scholarship if it were not for that WAI member, Dolores).
I had two weeks to get my package together and mail it in by
the deadline. I won! There are not enough words to express my
gratitude. PWC’s support and generosity enabled me to start the
process of getting my ATP rating, and move forward in my career.
What I learned from this was that WAI networking works
in ways that might surprise you. Through Karen Pontius (WAI
#11611 and PWC Scholarship Chair), I found out that the female
FedEx pilot I met
last year (Dolores
Pavletic) who led me to PWC, was a friend of PWC member and
WAI member Pamela Brophy (they met through their WAI chapter in Chicago). That’s the power of networking!
I was determined to attend WAI’s Conference in Reno in 2011,
where I was exposed to the “core” of aviation (including the re-
as told to Karen Pontius
