Leadingthe Way

FLYING HIGH

Exceptional women have soared high since the Wright brothers seminal flight in 1903.

Baroness Raymonde de Laroche made the world’s first solo woman’s flight (1909) and was the first licensed female pilot in 1910. In 1919, she set a women’s altitude record of 15,700 feet.

Bessie Coleman was the first woman of African-American descent and the first of Native-American descent, to hold a pilot license. She died in a plane crash in 1926 while testing a new aircraft.

A member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, Emily Howell Warner became the first female pilot for a scheduled U.S. passenger airline in 1973.

The Air Force’s first female fighter pilot in 1993, Jeannie Marie Leavitt was also the first woman to command a USAF combat fighter wing.

Dr. Sheila Widnall is an aerospace professor at MIT and served as the first female United States Secretary of the Air Force (1993-1997). In 1996 she was inducted into the Women in Aviation Pioneer Hall of Fame.

Leadingthe Way

CROSSING OCEANS

Pilots Beryl Markham and Amelia Earhart both gained notoriety for their determination to cross oceans. Their adventurous spirits continue to inspire others today.

Markham was the first person (man or woman) to fly solo across the Atlantic east-to-west. When Markham decided to take on the Atlantic crossing, no female pilot had yet flown non-stop from Europe to New York, and no woman had made the westward flight solo, though several had died trying. In September 1936, she took off from Abingdon, southern England. After a

20-hour flight, her Vega Gull, The Messenger, suffered fuel starvation due to icing of the fuel tank vents. She crash-landed at Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, becoming the first person to make it from England to North America non-stop from east to west.

Earhart flew a Lockheed Vega 5B from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, to Culmore, Ireland, on May 20, 1932, making her the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She was also the first aviator, man or woman, to fly alone from Honolulu to California in 1935. She disappeared while attempting to circumnavigate the globe in 1937.

Leadingthe Way

WOMEN OF NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s program of space travel, aeronautics and aerospace research has relied on the talents of women since its inception. These notables flew high, traveled far and made space travel possible.

Mary Golda Ross (died 2008) was a mathematician and aerospace engineer at Lockheed Martin where she became an integral part of the Space Race program. At the time, Ross was the only Native American woman who worked as a major consultant to NASA and worked on designing concepts for space travel and unmanned orbiting

objects. One of Ross’ biggest roles was laying the groundwork for the Apollo missions to the Moon.

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is an American mathematician whose calcu- lations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. Her story was told in the film, Hidden Figures.

Sally Ride, a physicist, joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya. She died in 2012.

Ellen Ochoa was the first Hispanic woman astronaut at NASA in 1988. In 1993 Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman in space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. She was the first Hispanic Director of the Johnson Space Center from 2013 to 2018.

Leadingthe Way

ENGINEERING THE FUTURE

Design and engineering owe a lot to these two women for pushing the aeronautics and aerospace industry forward into the future.

Emma Lilian Todd was the first woman to design and build an aircraft, which she debuted at the aero show of 1906 at Madison Square Garden. She was inspired after seeing airships in London and at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, as well as a sketch of an airplane in a Paris newspaper. Todd’s first full-sized biplane began construction in the fall

of 1908 by the Wittemann Brothers of Staten Island. She is the subject of the book titled Miss Todd and Her Wonderful Flying Machine.

Dana Ulery (born 1938) is a computer scientist and pioneer in scientific computing applications. She began her career in 1961 as the first female engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Ulery also played an active role in creating international standards for electronically exchanging technical information. In 2007, she retired from

her position as Chief Scientist of the Computational and Information Sciences Directorate at the United States Army Research Laboratory.

Leadingthe Way

DRIVING INTO HISTORY

Women’s leadership in the car business hasn’t always been front and center. These three women have driven into automotive history.

Bertha Benz, the business partner and wife of automobile inventor Karl Benz, was the first person to drive an automobile over a long distance, rigorously field testing the patent Motorwagen in 1888. She contributed to the design of the Motorwagen by adding wire insulation, inventing leather brake pads and a fuel line design. She would hold patent rights

under modern law, but was not allowed to be named as an inventor at that time, because she was married.

Mary Barra is the Chair and CEO of General Motors Company and is the first female CEO of a major global automaker. She started at GM at age 18, checking fender panels and inspecting hoods to pay for college tuition.

Dhivya Suryadevara became the first female CFO of General Motors in 2018 at age 39. Born and educated in India, Suryadevara was previously Vice President, Corporate Finance where she was responsible for Investor Relations, Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis and special projects.

Leadingthe Way

MODERNIZING AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY

You’ve got women to thank for being able to drive in the rain and signal to others your intentions to turn and stop. These women possessed neither mechanical nor engineering qualifications. They simply used common sense to find a solution to a widespread problem.

Mary Anderson was a real estate developer, rancher, viticulturist and inventor. In 1903, she was granted her first patent for an automatic car window cleaning device manually controlled from inside the car, called the windshield wiper.

Charlotte Bridgwood received a patent for the first electrically powered windshield wiper in 1917. But her design never caught on because it used rollers instead of blades. In 1922, Cadillac became the first car manufacturer to adopt bladed electric wipers as standard equipment.

Flora Lawrence, Bridgwood’s daughter, designed a mechanical signaling arm in 1914. She also designed the first mechanical brake signal. As the driver pushed a button, a sign on the rear bumper came up telling others which way the driver would turn.

Leadingthe Way

INNOVATING AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN

If you like the color, style or features of a modern vehicle, odds are you have a woman to thank for it.

Michelle Christensen was the first woman to lead a “supercar” design team. As Acura’s first female exterior designer, she created the Acura ZDX and RDX, Acura RL and RLX and the Honda NSX second generation.

Rossella Guasco is head of the Color & Materials Style Center for every Fiat Chrysler Automobile brand including Fiat, Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Maserati.

Nora Arellano, Toyota Principal Design Engineer, was awarded a patent for the side curtain airbag design used in the Toyota Tundra.

Ford Motor Company’s Group Chief Designer of Color and Materials, Susan Lampinen is a pioneer of sustainable materials used in the car industry where she has served as an automotive design specialist for nearly three decades.

Annette Baumeister, MINI’s Head of Color & Trim Design and Design Quality at The BMW Group for over a decade, is responsible for colors and materials for the exterior and interior design of the MINI – from paintwork color to the choice of roofliner, all the way to the seat upholstery design.

Leadingthe Way

WOMEN LEADING THE WAY IN NEW MEXICO

Maria Gertrudis Barceló aka Doña Tules (c. 1800-1852) was a notorious gambler and courtesan who

operated a gambling house and saloon on Burro Alley in Santa Fe. Despite her profession, Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy buried her in the south chapel of La Parroquia, and used the money from her funeral for badly-needed repairs to the cathedral.

Yetta Kohn (1843-1917) was a cattle rancher and business woman in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

She ran the family store and raised four children alone. She later moved to La Cinta, on the Canadian River, where she became a business woman purchasing land that would become the T-4 Cattle Company, one of New Mexico’s largest ranches, operated today by her descendants.

Harriet Belle Amsden Sammons (1876-1954), an astute financial manager and the first female bank president

in New Mexico, operated the First National Bank in Farmington from 1922 until 1951. During the Depression, she bought out the San Juan National Bank, keeping it solvent and approving loans. She financially supported the newly formed United Indian Traders Association and kept many Farmington citizens out of bankruptcy.

At age 23, Mary White was appointed by President Harding as the first woman in Chaves County to hold

a federal office: Postmistress. In 1927, White established one of the earliest Girl Scout camps in America and the first in New Mexico, in Otero County. Camp Mary White taught stewardship of nature and leadership of community to generations of girls. She died in 1988.

The Honorable Mary Coon Walters (died 2001) was a transport pilot during World War II and the only female

graduate in the University of New Mexico School of Law Class of 1962. After serving on the Court of Appeals and then as a probate judge, she became the first female New Mexico Supreme Court justice in 1984.

Bennie Sanchez co-founded Hurricane Enterprises. Her large-scale entertainment company

brought over 500 artists to Albuquerque, including the Everly Brothers, Fats Domino and Elvis Presley. She and her sons, Al Hurricane, Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby put New Mexico on the map as a performing arts and music state. Sanchez received the 2010 Governor’s Award for Outstanding Women for the State of New Mexico. She died in 2011.

New Mexico women have been leading the way since before the state joined the Union as business owners, bankers, scientists and members of the judiciary.

Leadingthe Way

WOMEN LEADING THE WAY IN NEW MEXICO CONT’D.

Lydia Villa-Komaroff, a molecular and cellular biologist from Santa Fe, was the third Mexican

American woman in the United States to receive a doctorate degree in the sciences (1975). She is a co-founding member of The Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science. Her most notable discovery was in 1978 during her post-doctoral research, when she was part of a team that discovered how bacterial cells could be used to generate insulin.

Lilakai Julian Neil (1900-1961) was the first woman elected to the Navajo Tribal Council. She testified in

hearings about the immunity of Indian territories from state jurisdiction and the tribal self-determination policy of the 20th century. Neil was associated with the founding of La Vida Mission, a Seventh-day Adventist mission center in Farmington. The Lily Neil Memorial Chapel there is named in her honor.

Annie Dodge Wauneka is a member of the Navajo Nation Council and three term head of the Council’s

Health and Welfare Committee. She became the first Native American to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and the Navajo Medal of Honor. In 1984, the Navajo Council designated her The Legendary Mother of the Navajo Nation. She died in 1997 and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000.

Susana Martinez became the first female Governor of New Mexico and first Hispanic

female state chief executive in the United States in 2011. In 2013, Martinez was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.

Michelle Lujan Grisham is the first Democratic Latina to be elected governor in U.S. history, taking

office in 2019. She previously represented New Mexico’s 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2018.

Conceived by Albuquerque Community Foundation, the statewide Ladies who Launch Fund will build stronger bridges, enhance communication and collaboration among women across the state.

abqcf.org

Leading the Way is supported by Nusenda