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Our Members
Leslie
Minor
I
am a recent addition to the Ambassador Chapter of The 99s.
My first inclination to fly came at the young age of five.
I remember waking from afternoon naps where I
dreamt of flying around the bedroom with arms spread wide,
enjoying the views and feelings of soaring high above my twin
bed cloaked in the colorful handmade quilt that my grandmother
gave me. Those feelings of pure joy, freedom and privilege
were followed immediately by an unquenchable thirst to fall
asleep again and step back into that wonderful world of flying,
yet to no avail.
Throughout
the years, fond memories of those dreams progressed into
fantasies of flight as a powerful eagle soaring on the
winds rushing through peaceful red canyons high above the
chaos of the world below. When I was fifteen, my boyfriend/philosopher/budding
writer at the time gave me a book called “Wind, Sand,
and Stars”, by Antoine De Saint Exupery. His intent
was to stir a profound and deep physic change within me.
Unfortunately, my heart was already stirred toward a profound
and deep desire to fly. It was upon reading about the challenging
and dangerous adventures of the French airmail pilot that
a light switched on inside my brain. In that instant I committed
my life to the pursuit of a career in flying.
Ten thousand plus hours and many fascinating flying experiences
later, I am currently a Captain on a Learjet 60 as well as
the Director of Safety for a small charter operator on the
west coast, living in Florida.
Flying
has never lost its edge for me. I entertained a three year
stint as an accountant, but the tug of flying soon had
me chasing after my dream again. Actually, it was a commercial
of a man lying on the beach asking his girlfriend to pinch
him. When she did, he woke up screaming in a tiny office
cubicle with a ceiling fan spinning above his head. That
was a little too real for me and resulted in an immediate
consultation of Trade-A-Plane’s “Pilots Wanted” section.
The rest is history. I hope to help other pilots chase after
their flying dreams through my involvement in the Ambassador
99s.
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Ambassador Chapter