About Our Guest:

What if the place you’ve been searching for—the one that reconnects people to purpose, skill, and community—was hiding in an airplane hangar in northern Vermont, or even somewhere near your own point on the map? As it turns out—and you probably already know this— every single one of us often has some great, world-class innovation being discovered very close to home…one that we maybe could even be part of, if we take the time to look for it.

Beth White, founder of Habitat for Aviation, and her Media & Administrative Lead (and chief storyteller), Zoë Brosky, are here to put an exclamation point on that idea, and to explore big, useful themes, like finding your passion in unexpected places, sharing your gifts so they expand into a life well-lived for generations, and turning an almost-tragic setback into a win for everyone’s future.

Habitat for Aviation is the first (and possibly the only) multigenerational women-led aircraft-build program in aviation history! Beth and Zoë are here to announce to the world that it is poised to take the field of aviation by storm with their flagship program, WOMEN BUILD PLANES. In addition to this, they are launching a capital campaign to build a world-class training facility dedicated to educating and advancing women across aviation by giving them real, hands-on work to experience—together.

That scenario I described, of finding magic closer to home than you imagined? That’s exactly what my daughter Louisa, a mechanical engineer, discovered when she walked into a Sunday WOMEN BUILD PLANES work session at the Franklin County State Airport. She hadn’t realized she was missing a piece of her puzzle, but within hours of finding this hands-on, purposeful volunteering—alongside a remarkable community—“the build” had opened up a bigger, bolder future for her.

As a lifelong educator with PhD in Educational Leadership, steeped in Big Picture Learning’s “the student is the curriculum” ethos, Beth recognized a bigger pattern beginning to emerge: If you can blend the trades, mentorship, and real-world learning, you can change lives.

So yes, this episode is “close to home” for me—in more ways than one—but it’s no less astonishing than talking to an astronaut or a nonprofit leader who has fed two billion meals to hungry children. Even if you think you may have no connection to this topic, listen in; you may find it speaks to you in ways you never imagined!

From Setback to Runway

Seven years ago, a book cracked something open for Beth White: West with the Night, the story of aviator Beryl Markham. Beth was moved by the true story to take a “discovery flight, for herself” then landed, grinning, and declared, “I’m going to call an airplane into my reality.” Someone asked her what colors, and she said “Green and white.”

Now…we’re not going to get all spooky-ookey on you here…but try to explain this away: Six months after Beth made that declaration, the widow of her middle-school math teacher offered her a green-and-white Cessna 150 and a hangar in exchange for helping reroof a barn. (Yes, really.)

What followed was nothing short of mentoring entoring magic. At Franklin County State Airport, elder mechanic and community pillar, George Coy, waved Beth’s plane into his hangar, and uttered the sentence that changed her trajectory: “You know you can fix your own airplane, right?” 

As a lifelong educator with PhD in Educational Leadership, steeped in Big Picture Learning’s “the student is the curriculum” ethos, Beth recognized a bigger pattern beginning to emerge: if you can blend the trades, mentorship, and real-world learning, you can change lives.

She was flying high in more ways than one…then came 2021. 

Two weeks before her instrument checkride, Beth discovered a lump near her armpit. That discovery began what would become an all-out fight with invasive ductal breast cancer: eight rounds of chemo, a double mastectomy, radiation, then an oophorectomy—all during the height of the pandemic, when you couldn’t bring more than one person to the hospital for support…but her community found another way to show up for her.

On the day of her surgery, a “convoy of caring”—cement trucks, oil tankers, work trucks—all lined the road at 4 a.m., decked in lights and pink flags, to beam love and strength from afar. 

Beth kept one quote close throughout the entire ordeal: Viktor Frankl’s reminder that our last freedom is always to choose our attitude. He said:

“Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Beth chose purpose.

Building More Than Airplanes

Ten months later, she founded Habitat for Aviation to do exactly that: to nourish a place where courage, belonging, and skill can take off.

Let’s set the scene for what WOMEN BUILD PLANES looks like on a typical Sunday: a pink door swings open to a hum of rivet guns and laughter; multigenerational crews in hand-dyed pink coveralls huddle over a real kit plane—a RANS S-21 Outbound. The tail’s complete. The wings are underway. An FAA-certified A&P/IA (an airplane and powerplant mechanic with inspection authorization) checks everything: No rushing—safety and mastery are the point.

Elsewhere, a nine-year-old girl learns to pull a riv­et from a high-schooler who just won a full ride for aerospace engineering. “Granny” (yes, that’s her call sign) teaches younger builders to drive—and wrangles scholarships like a pro. Auntie Bonnie stocks a women-in-aviation library and tells WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII) stories you’ll never forget. Cliff, the A&P/IA, shows up on his day off in pink overalls, stays late to listen when someone needs it, and can always be counted on to play good music.

You can feel it: they’re building more than an airplane. They’re building belonging, confidence, and a shared mental model of excellence.

See It, Be It

Zoë Brosky grew up in an aviation family—her dad flew KC-135s; her grandpa flew F-16 fighter jets—yet she never saw a woman in the cockpit. “You can’t be what you can’t see,” she says. Guidance counselors steered her to college and accounting, but her hands—and her camera—kept tugging her toward making. 

At 22, she met met her first woman pilot—Beth—and stepped into a role that fit her perfectly: capturing and amplifying the story so other girls can see themselves in it.

That visibility matters. Only ~5% of airline pilots are women, and just 2.6% of aviation maintenance technicians are women. Meanwhile, by 2027, one in four aviation maintenance positions is projected to sit empty as veterans retire—a 40k+ person shortfall. And as they often say, “you can’t be what you can’t see.“

Habitat for Aviation sits right at the intersection of need and possibility.

The Habitat Model (Steal This!)

• Mentorship as a norm. Elders invite beginners to the bench, not to the sidelines.
  
• One learner at a time. Big Picture Learning’s DNA—real work, real stakes, real care.
  
• Rituals that bond. Pink overalls, circle-of-gratitude check-ins, “lunch & learn” stories.
  
• Do the whole thing. Not a demo; a certified mechanic, a real plane, and hands on the tools.
  
• Scholarship muscle. Adults “beat the bushes,” helping kids find stuff that’s made for them, so talent meets opportunity.
  
• Language that lifts. Quotes at the ready, mantras in the air (“See it. Be it.”).
  

What’s Next: A Home Base that Scales

Sundays 11–5 is a start. The vision is bigger: a world-class, every-day facility at Franklin County Airport that welcomes learners, mentors, and partner programs year-round. Walk into Beth’s vision and you’ll see:

• A conventional hangar for builds, maintenance, and inspections.
  
• A dedicated electric aviation wing in partnership with BETA Technologies (Burlington’s trailblazer in electric aircraft), to train the next wave of avionics and e-propulsion techs.
  
• Classrooms and quiet study nooks; Auntie Bonnie’s library.
  
• A communal kitchen, because healthy humans build healthy systems.
  

The building exists—an unused cold-storage warehouse on airport grounds—with soil studies, environmental reviews, hangar door and taxi-lane planning already underway. Volunteer engineers from BETA sketched early layouts. 

Now comes the capital raise: $20M to finish and equip the space, seed replication, and launch satellite “habitats” across the country.

How You Can Play a Part

• If you’re a parent, grandparent, or educator: Send a curious girl (or bring yourself!) to a Sunday build. Bring a class to visit. Share the story at school board and PTA meetings.
  
• If you hire, lead, or fund in aviation/tech/manufacturing: Tour the hangar. Co-create internships, apprenticeships, and tool/equipment sponsorships. Help close the 2027 maintenance gap—with women and underrepresented talent squarely in the pipeline.
  
• If you’re an amplifier: Share Beth and Zoë’s episode widely. A single forward can put the vision in front of someone who can move mountains.
  
• If you’re a philanthropist or connector: Help close the $20M gap for the Franklin County facility and its first satellites. (Beth’s dream list includes champions who value women’s empowerment and practical impact.)
  

Leave With This

• “Pick a problem. Start solving it.” Don’t wait for permission—start where you are.
  
• “Those who matter don’t mind; those who mind don’t matter.” Keep going.
  
• “This is your one wild and precious life.” (Mary Oliver) Spend it on what makes your heart sing.
  

Beth’s story began with a book, a green-and-white Cessna, and a sentence from a mentor. It detoured through chemo and came out stronger, as these things often do when we let purpose steer. Now, on any given Sunday, you can watch a nine-year-old, a high-school scholarship winner, a grandmother, and a pink-overall’d mechanic move an airplane—and each other—forward, rivet by rivet.

If you’ve been craving proof that ordinary people can build extraordinary futures, this is it. And if you’ve been waiting for a sign that your skills, your story, and your stubborn hope belong together, here it is: come help us build. 

It is truly worth a trip—even across the country, if that’s what it takes to get you here! 

• Habitat for Aviation Website
• Beryl Markham documentary
• Mary Oliver Interviews
• BETA Technologies
• Big Picture Learning
• Victor Frankl
• Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII

• 00:00 – Intro & Welcome
• 05:03 – Finding inspiration from aviatrix Beryl Markham
• 12:17 – A battle with cancer becomes a new mission
• 22:29 – Break
• 24:47 – Zoë’s story: growing up around aviation
• 29:26 – Inside the pink hangar: women and girls building a real airplane
• 39:24 – About Habitat for Aviation
• 45:52 – The vision for a world-class aviation center
• 59:20 – Lessons on courage, gratitude, and finding what you’re built to do
• 1:11:05 – Closing