On to the Emerald City…

Aviation enthusiast.

Storyteller.

Adventure seeker.

Those are the phrases I use to describe myself across my social media pages, and I do my best to live up to each one of them on a daily basis.

For the first, I usually find myself out at a St. Louis-area airport three-to-four times a week, and I love documenting those experiences and sharing them with others on Instagram who share my love for airplanes.

For the second, that’s where my day job comes in. As a historian at Boeing, I’m fortunate to be able to spend my time researching and writing about the company’s past. There’s a lot we can learn from history, and it’s my job to tell those stories and make them meaningful and relevant today.

For the third, I haven’t quite lived up to my own expectations over the last year or two, but that’s largely due to the pandemic, which wreaked havoc on the world and hit the travel industry particularly hard. However, I have had one BIG adventure in the works for awhile now, and it’s finally time to share that with you, my fellow aviation enthusiasts and travel lovers.

I’ve been with Boeing for about three-and-a-half years. I started in Chicago where I worked in executive communications for just over a year. The Windy City is, of course, the company’s headquarters, but nestled on the 30th floor of a downtown skyscraper, I didn’t really feel like I was working for an airplane manufacturer. A new opportunity to work in Historical Services led me to St. Louis at the end of 2018, and while I’m not nearly as passionate about military aircraft as I am about commercial, this has been an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything.

For the last two years, I’ve worked just steps from where the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft were built in the 1960s, and a stone’s throw from where Boeing builds the F-15, F/A-18 and T-7A today. Living in downtown St. Louis, I’m situated almost perfectly in between a number of airports where I’ve managed to photograph some incredible airplanes… from an OC-135B at MidAmerica (BLV) or a DC-3 downtown (CPS), to N757A — the first 757 built, which today is used as a testbed for the F-22 Raptor — at Lambert (STL) or a DC-9 at Spirit of St. Louis (SUS). This city is an aviation mecca.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. And as the saying goes, “When one door closes, another one opens.” Since I first started applying to jobs with Boeing half-a-decade ago, I’ve had my sights set on one city. Lucky for me, my husband Scott was just as interested in moving to this particular place. Over the last few months, planning has been in full swing, and today… well, today is the day.

I’m sitting on an Alaska 737-900ER, cruising at 34,000 feet, on a one-way flight to Seattle. Our two cats, Penelope (aka Beans) and Luka (aka Buddy), are in the cargo hold, experiencing life in the sky for the first time. Scott, his dad and brother, are about to hit the road… driving our car and a truck 2,000 miles cross-country. I’ll land at my new home airport in about four hours. The guys will arrive in about four days. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this day to come, and in many ways I feel like we’re finally “going home.”

Scott and I will always trace our roots back to Minnesota… that’s where we met in 2010 and where most of our family still resides. And since then, we’ve been on an incredible journey with some awesome “layovers” — first in Kansas City, then back to Minneapolis, on to Chicago and now here in St. Louis. It’s been fun, but we’re both very ready to land at our final destination: Seattle.

Stay tuned for new airplanes, new stories and new adventures. I consider myself very fortunate to be able to share this particular adventure with all of you, and am eternally grateful for your support.

To blue skies and tailwinds.