One of the counselors at Sugarbush Soaring’s youth soaring camp this summer was Grace Kane, a 2019 alumna of the camp. She was back this year to help lead the club’s second camp session late last month.
Kane grew up in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and by the time she was in high school she had decided to pursue aviation as a career. Her grandfather was a B17 pilot in World War II and flying ran in the family. Her aunt is an airline pilot and a few of her dad’s brothers and sisters have private pilot licenses.
“When I was a sophomore in high school my aunt was re-entering the aviation career field after raising four boys. That gave me the courage and motivation to pursue a career in a field that is so male-dominated,” she said.
This summer when she was a counselor at the camp, there were six young women and three young men. When she attended the camp in 2019, she was the only female participant.
During high school she started flying lessons and training for her pilot license. She was at the airport training every day after school and on weekends.
“I was 16-17 years old and I would go to training and it was just me and my instructor. One of the great things that the campers I worked with this summer pointed out was the value of peer-based community of support. There weren’t that many young people around me when I was training,” she said.
Around that time, her brother shared with her a sub-Reddit post about Sugarbush Soaring’s youth soaring camps and she applied and received a scholarship. She had already obtained her private license for a powered aircraft in early 2018.
“When I went to the soaring camp though, it was a really awesome and motivating environment to be in because I saw there were so many other like-minded youths, enthusiastic about flying me. It really supported me and motivated me,” she said.
A month after camp, she began studying at St. Louis University for a Bachelors of Science and Aeronautics degree. She was working on her instrument rating at the time. When COVID hit, she was sent home and didn’t fly from March until July 2020. She could not work towards her flight ratings but she was able to fly outside of school though.
She returned to school and was able to graduate a year early in May 2022 because she’d already started private pilot training in high school and used her summers to take classes and do internships to accumulate credits.
Today she’s working for the Massimo Company, a Fortune 500 company, in Detroit as a private pilot. That job didn’t fall out of the sky for her (pun intended? Or not?). In 2018, shortly after getting her private pilot’s license, Massimo was hosting a girls’ in aviation day at their hangar at Detroit Metro Airport. She attended the event, despite being geared towards a career as an international long-haul pilot for Delta Airlines, which has a big hub in Detroit.
“That event opened up the world of corporate aviation and I was enamored by such technologically advanced aircraft. But ultimately, it was the people I met that day who supported me through my college education and kept me eager to continue to learn about corporate aviation. I kept in touch with them over the years,” she said.
After graduation she passed her certified flight instructor check ride and a few days later received a job offer to fly the Phenom 300 as a first officer for Massimo. She acknowledges that it was a unique situation to be offered this job opportunity with so little experience but also pointed out that it’s important to cultivate relationships with people who share the aviation dream.
“I found the right people to believe in me and the team at Massimo placed a lot of belief and support in me,” she said.
In a typical week -- each week is different, she said – she’ll have a few day trips, leaving Detroit early in the morning, picking up people or flying people out to Detroit. to visit a plant or one of the company’s business units. There are some overnight trips as well. She is gaining experience on the Phenom 300 so that she can go on to fly the company’s Falcon 2000 LX S which is capable of transatlantic flight. She also serves on the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator, work that matters a lot to her in terms of improving those values in the corporate culture and into the field of aviation in general.
When she was asked to be a counselor this summer for the soaring camps, she said she couldn’t say no.
“For all that camp did for me as an 18-year-old, I couldn’t say no. It not only improved my stick and rudder flying skills, but the instructors taught me what it means to be a passionate instructor. And they also taught me many life lessons that I don't believe that I would have learned elsewhere and I carry those lessons and act on them every day in my life,” she said.
“I hope to be back next year because I just had such an incredible week. And it was rewarding to see how these youth were change throughout the course of a week, and to hear after each flight, all the things they learned, and their enthusiasm, because instructors there place a lot of trust in the campers, and they allow you to do things there that I don't believe other youth get the opportunity to do. I think it helps them grow and gain confidence very early on,” she continued.
