Karen Alstrup has always loved aviation since she was an infant and her grandfather "flew" her around the living room, to working with medivac as a volunteer EMT, to being a combat medic and falling in love with Blackhawks and Chinooks in the Army. "Beyond that, I’ve never been able to not look up when I hear a plane go over head and I still get giddy when the throttles advance for takeoff, whether I’m in the plane or on the side watching, especially if it has afterburners," she explained.
After 14 years focused on trauma, which she says, just came natural, and while she liked it, she did not love it. "So, I decided enough of wishing I was in aviation, I was going to switch careers," she said. "I initially started training as a helicopter pilot while working on my BS in aviation management, but then added on my A&P as well when I was in my second year of the BS program."
Alstrup says she has spent forever to figure out where she belongs, when really, it’s a mixture of everything: teaching, aviation and medicine. "I’ve been a volunteer EMT (volley and paid), went to college in hopes of being a pilot, but things went a different way," she noted. She became an Army combat medic and was injured. When she returned, she became a volley and paid EMT again as captain on her hometown ambulance corps., which included training those other in the corps. and working with the Jr Corps, 9-1-1 dispatcher and then completed three years of training to get her BSN. "But it wasn’t for me," she said. "So I did a year of training to become a surgical technologist. At this point, I spoke to the VA and decided to change careers and started working on rotor flight training to work towards being a medivac pilot. But the funding eventually was shorted before I could finish my instrument and commercial ratings."
Alstrup says her wish is to work to change the way mechanics are seen and trained. "We are still viewed as unskilled by the DOL," she mentioned. "Pilots are given strict, approved training programs to follow, while maintenance is accepted training and depending on the company, will vary how and when maintenance personnel are trained. I want to work towards making a better, stronger training program for mechanics to work toward being more on par with how pilots are trained in a wish to standardize training for all maintenance."
Vernon L Berry, owner of BT Avcon - Consulting Services, who nominated Alstrup said, "As a leader, Karen demonstrates a willingness to jump in and provide hands-on leadership to her team and colleagues in other departments who used Training Dept. services. She is key to continuous improvement related to safety and technical competency. It rare to find someone so accomplished in whatever they put their hand to and Karen is one of those people. It was a pleasure to have her on my team and I would recommend her for any leadership position in the maintenance or operations areas as her enthusiasm and competencies would add value to any assignment she takes on."
