Aviators answer higher calling.

Byline: Jack Moran The Register-Guard

Taking off into the wild blue yonder has always been a dream of 28-year-old Eugene resident Barbara Warren, a Lane Community College Aviation Academy student who will earn her private pilot's license this year.

Kathryn Miles, 86, had similar aspirations when she was a young girl growing up in Texas. She ignored stereotypes and turned her flight fantasy into reality during World War II, as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots. The paramilitary group - which was ultimately granted full military status by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 - primarily ferried military aircraft and aerial targets from factories to military bases.

Miles, Warren and about 30 other women shared their experiences Saturday at the LCC Aviation Academy's second annual Women in Aviation Careers Conference at the Eugene Airport.

The event was organized to encourage women to aim high and consider working in the aviation industry.

"I'm fishing for candidates in a market where we haven't done well" as far as attracting women, academy Director Harvey Birdseye said. "Women are a very underrepresented part of the aviation com- munity."

Statistics prove that point. Birdseye said just six of 100 students in LCC's pilot training program are women. Of 40 students attending the program's aircraft maintenance classes, three are female.

According to 2005 Federal Aviation Administration statistics, women account for 6 percent of all pilots in the United States.

Nearly 19 percent of all non-pilot aviation jobs nationally are held by females.

It's unclear why so few women choose aviation as a career. Warren, the LCC student, said it could have something to do with the ideas that some little girls develop about the types of jobs women should have.

"Growing up, I really thought it was a men's field," she said. "When I finally realized that I could be a pilot, I started to see a future for myself that I had never known before."

With hopes of becoming a corporate pilot, Warren said enrolling in LCC's program "has opened the door to dreams I always had but didn't think were possible."

Warren said she was inspired Saturday by stories told by speakers including Miles, the World War II-era pilot, and Gladys Corderman, a Eugene pilot who has 30 years of experience.

"When I first started, I was the only woman I knew who flew," Corderman said. She added that plenty of people remain uncomfortable with the idea of a woman controlling an airplane.

"But it isn't a matter of male and female," Corderman told conference attendees. "It's all about skill."

Miles, who after World War II joined the Air Force Reserve and attained the rank of First Lieutenant, said she pursued an aviation career because it was her first love.

"I was always interested in it," Miles said.

"A lot of people at the time said women weren't supposed to be flying. But we proved that we could fly, and fly well. It was such a thrill to fly those airplanes."

Also speaking at the conference were several members of the Rosie the Riveter group, who worked in defense factories during World War II. While they never flew a plane, the "Rosies" worked on aircraft and were a vital part of the war effort, toiling next to men who often resented them, recalled Opal Nelson, who was just 19 when she started work at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, Calif.

"This was a job that changed a lot of us from cookie-making, child-raising mothers into believing that we could do anything," Nelson said.

"It changed our lives, totally."

AIM HIGH

Interested in an aviation career? For information about the Lane Community College Aviation Academy, visit www.lanecc.edu/flight