Month: March 2016

Alaskan homesteading, eight children, and a career in aviation have prepared Michelle McWhiter for whatever adventure comes next.

From the time her family moved to Alaska when she was three years old to the first time she flew a plane as a teen cadet to now, Michelle McWhirter has always had an adventurous, independent spirit.

The principles Michelle’s family lived by were persistence, patience and perseverance. “It served me well,” Michelle says. “I always had this sense of adventure and desire to see what was around the corner.”

For Michelle, it’s been one adventure after the next, including a long period of homesteading in rural Alaska during her twenties. Using a generator for electricity and outhouses that her family built, Michelle also grew her own vegetables—including more than a thousand pounds of potatoes. Her family kept horses, pigs, chickens and goats, and the land was populated with spruces, poplars and birches. Surrounded by mountains, it was a picturesque place representing years of hard work.

As her family grew, Michelle eventually moved away from the homesteading lifestyle. “I have an alarming amount of children,” Michelle says with a laugh. Eight, to be exact—they span more than 20 years in age.

While she raised her children, Michelle took on a number of jobs to support her family. She sold crafts to local shops and markets, and even sewed thousands of booties for the dogs racing in the famous Alaskan tradition, the Iditarod. Michelle also pursued her passion for writing.

When her children were older, she began working at Fairbanks International for an aviation vendor that serves Alaska Airlines as a fleet acting supervisor. At the same time, she was also working as a certified medical assistant in long-term care. Between her two jobs, Michelle was working more than 60 hours a week.

Often there would be three planes on the ground at any given time, and Michelle had to coordinate all those crews.

When her company introduced Springshot, Michelle saw the immediate benefits it brought to her team and enjoyed helping her colleagues use the technology to track their work and keep in touch with each other.

Michelle recently moved to Anchorage and is ready for her next adventure.

Tower Director at LaGuardia Airport, Caroline Garcia has a strong connection with her family and a vision for her future built on their hard work.

Caroline’s story started many years before she was born when her mother, Teresa, landed at JFK in 1976. Teresa arrived expecting to meet her Aunt at the arrival gates. She knew no one in New York City, had never been outside of her home country, Ecuador, and struggled to speak English. After waiting and waiting, she soon realised that  no one was coming to meet her. She found herself alone in a foreign city, with nowhere to stay and no return ticket to fly home.

On her flight to New York, Caroline’s mother had chatted to the woman sitting next to her. Little did she know how impactful this small talk would be. As she was deciding whether to remain at the airport or catch a cab into the city alone, the same woman from her flight approached her, offered her a place to stay and a job to get started. This was the start of her new beginning.

As with many new immigrants in New York, Teresa soon found a community of other Ecuadorians with similar backgrounds where she could maintain her own cultural traditions while embracing the customs of the new country she now called home. She eventually married a native Ecuadorian and raised her family just outside of Manhattan in Queens.

When Teresa first landed on the tarmac at JFK, on that fateful day in ‘76, she had no way of knowing that 30 years later, her daughter Caroline would start working in the airport tower there, guiding planes and air control while watching people land everyday in The Big City.

Born and raised in Queens, Caroline is deeply grateful to her parents for everything in her life. They’ve shaped her outlook on life, and have always motivated her to keep moving forward. And now, as a 25 year old, Caroline values consistency, authenticity, hard work and hustle.

Caroline is proud and passionate about her aviation career that she started when she was 18. Thanks to her ‘work’ family, there aren’t many Mondays that Caroline dreads. Working across JFK and LaGuardia, she’s a familiar face around the airport and has many stories to tell. Between watching an entire airport go into quarantine (when a passenger accidently went through one of the side doors into the terminal), and seeing a plane come to a halt on the tarmac to let a mother turtle and her baby turtles cross, she’s seen it all.

While Caroline loves her job, she hopes she’ll return back to school one day to finish her studies in aviation to become part of the air traffic control team that has direct contact with the captains of the aircrafts. Her parents have always encouraged her to test her limits and strive to reach for the highest level in her field. Having both struggled in their youths, they form a united front behind Caroline, acting as pillars of strength and some of the best Pokeno players she’s seen.

Along with continuing her studies, Caroline hopes to visit more of her family in Ecuador to learn and understand more of her heritage and family traditions. Until then, she’ll continue to work at one of the biggest entry and exit points in the United States. One where her parents crossed long ago to start a new American-Ecuadorian generation and one where she’ll continue to pass as she explores the world and grows in every way she can.

Favorite movie: Interview with the Vampire
Most important travel item: Hiking shoes
If you could have dinner with anyone (alive or living) who would it be? Dinner with my grandparents because I never got to meet them, as they passed before I was born.
Favorite city: San juan, Puerto Rico