the founder and former president of open hearts big dreams and a project we're focusing on is early reader box because we know in ethiopia there aren't enough early reader books and the ability to it to learn in your own language in books that engage in our colorful is critically important so we've created a number of books these are now available on amazon but as the more important piece is that those books are going back to  allowing kids to learn how to read and we all know that reading is the vehicle that opens up the next level of education and can change a kid's future uses the future you have the ideas you have the power you may not have fully unlocked all of it you asked but i think one of the things we're doing is we're having a a junior board of young people whether they be high school or college or early career because we know that the solutions lie with the young people today for my generation recreated some of this and we are clearly doing some of our part to figure out like how to make things better but the kids of the future the little kids who learned to read the books are like the more distant future  but the young people there's a big place for you in figuring out like where you want to make your contribution and you can do it as a young person in fact i think it's more compelling for a young person because i think like i look at my little one and she will she will speak in front of two or three hundred people asking people to give and to to help create opportunities and it's hard to see a you know she's done it since she was three a three four five six seven year old get up there and say this is not fair and you need to fix it and use it as a young person and say if a seven year old can do that so can i and i think that that that feeling that you have something to contribute kids don't see boundry so her first answer to me was if kids don't get to go to school or don't get to learn to read that's not fair and you need to fix it and it was that simple it's not like it's complicated it's hard it's just it's not fair and you got to fix it so that's part of what we're doing is like those things in the world that are not fair and we're trying to do our part to fix it because my little girl was like you know mom i can fix everything right because my mother supposed to fix everything and for me i took the challenge of what can i do i clearly can't fix everything but i can do something and again if it's successful or not at least you tried so i think there's if you try and you're not successful you might learn something you might inspire someone else so it's not just want only going to do it if i'm guaranteed success life  not work like that so we're taking some big bold vats and trying to do some crazy things and i'm sure some things will succeed beyond our wildest imaginations and some things for whatever reason won't but i think for us to take chances try new things and really see what you can what impact you can have and i think in our own a zation organizations like this one there's lots of places where you can have a voice and you can have power and if you look at the things happening in the world today youth is having a really big impact in a voice and i'd just like to encourage more of you to figure out like what's the thing that you could do to have the impact you want to have in your world th aircrafts the weight and balance aircraft nomenclature we talk about the operating system we talk about how to compute your fuel burn on takeoff on climb on cruise on descent to the landing also we make sure that the students will vary in science and math so that this is a welcome for them if they want it it's there for them to achieve they have to dedicate themselves and sacrifice but it's well worth it success my name is kimberly ford go by kim and i'm from right here in bellevue washington and currently i'm a seven thirty seven first officer for alaska airlines i've been with alaska for seventeen years i started my career in the u s air force i flew the k c one thirty five which is there a fuel in plane and i also flew the c seventeen which is actually right behind me which is a cargo plane so i did both are fueling and cargo for the air force i started out my career at the air force academy which is basically a way to get a free ride you get free education and free free flight training i was lucky that my father was an army lieutenant who could mentor me and get me some in from i spent twenty five years in the air force i got to fly around the world got to achieve my dreams and then i'm really lucky that i got to when i was almost finished with that i joined the air force reserve  after the active duty i did around afghanistan and iraq and at the same time i started working for alaska airlines so aviation is a great career there are a lot of different options in addition to being a pilots and i could talk about those later but if it's a career that you would like to do i courage you to go for it work hard we always talk about with my other mentees it's that desire and it's also the preparation so make sure you put that effort and the time and the training get your degree set you need and the biggest thing is stay out of trouble even anything small like a speeding ticket or anything like that you know you can avoid that kind of trouble keep a clean record and all the doors will be open to you so again i i look forward to meeting with you all and working with you all and it's a pleasure to get to talk to you today thank you so much let's see it was it was a little bit challenging just because there are different diversity and gratian having women and people of color in leadership roles so i could roll into that and i knew that i would be treated respectfully and also for me i didn't have money for  and they paid for everything they paid for my four year undergraduate degree they paid for all of my training to fly i think airplane they also gave me a graduate degree and then i got a pension and health care so i got everything i needed the air right to serve a number of here so once you go through their pilot training they want you to serve at the time it was like eight years or something like that but basically to go from zero to be an airline pilot it takes about seven or eight years so all you have to do is just enter you have to make sure you talk to the right critter and have a mentor make sure they get you in the right direction don't just like a list if you enlisted it's more challenging to get out but if you talk to the officer recruiter and work with a mentor you can actually have a pathway to get your undergraduate or graduate degree and it could be also you can be a lawyer or a doctor they will pay for all of that and then it makes it easier for you to buy a house you have a pension mean things that you guys really care about now but just think about it for later you know how you take care of yourself there are  i think my minority pilots i'm trying to remember it's either like between three and five percent and then minority women pilots it's like less than one percent so there's not there not very many of us one thing that i would suggest to you is  you're coming into which you want to do aviation or any other job i would say remember who you are whether it's a religion or culturally or language you're just be who you are and be proud like i would always try to be like like i had some guys and just nothing wrong with country music or but you know so i would try to fit in and be be with them and try not to show my cultural aspects like who i am but then i learned that wait a minute this is this is who i am like if you get me you get this you know you get my family where i'm from what we the music we listen to so just keep that part of yourself because actually that's what makes you special that's what makes you who you are and then you're actually bringing a fresh perspective as a leader as a pilot as an engineer or whatever it may be and then also seek out organizations like their organizations with engineers or organizations or pilots tuskegee airmen or whatever join those organizations like this one and then basically they get to a chance to chat and said to learn and t interface with other other folks like you you'll have people that want to challenge you because you're either a minority or a certain religion or whatever or where you're from or the way you speak or whatever but just remember that those people are ignorant and i mean some when you're in the environment just be professional do your job but don't let the person push that on you it's not your fault that they don't like it that you're a person of color or that you whatever your religion or your or your sexual orientation is not it's not your problem it's their problem  and then i ran one and then i watched three and then and then like at you know four months you'd run a mile and then it's two miles so somebody always told me she was like take care of the easy stuff so like for being a pilot you have to learn your emergency procedures and there are certain numbers you have to learn i don't know for engineering there's like certain basic things your fitness and everything if you practice out a little bit each day when it comes time for your interviewer to get into college or whatever you'll you'll know that you'll be in shape great that be cool like dr or someone awesome you know there are there's there really bringing over checklists like so pilots use checklists to make sure everything is done and they were i read that they were having problems like they would leave something in something  somebody or something like that so now they do these checklists where you have to make sure ok i'm operating on your left leg is that right your left leg and intervene you sign off and then you have to say ok i have this tool and i have this tool and i have this tool that all the tools your left leg and your name is  s field really use a lot of the same things and you have to have a lot of persuasion like i would like i would start doing it now like basically with either you're an engineer or a doctor like you do it and then you check to make sure it was done right you know so you do it and then you just  do how many times you heard i mean this is sickening you can do whatever you want to do that's only half true to the other half is you've got to work you've got to prepare you've got to train you got to educate otherwise you can't do what you want to do for that airplane you just can't jump on it today and do it takes training takes hours of practice takes study discipline those kind of things and you guys can do all that but you got to make up your mind to do it no one will give you those things right it was great you know i love serving serve my country for one of the airplanes that i've traveled all over the world all seven continents forty five countries all throughout asia and africa in antarctica and everywhere it was wonderful i loved it and i would trade it beside the flying you know what the military will do is instill discipline the structure there and you learn how to lead gives you leadership potential leadership skills things like that so i love it i wouldn't trade it for the world and if you are considering aviation if you're considering it the military is a great option a great offer you can see so many cool stuff and fly state of the art aircraft to work with people functions of course one carries people one carries nothing you know different functions of your or your vehicle but they work about the same and what you learn intricacies in the limitations of each aircraft you can go from one to one or the other pretty easily yeah guy although i will say this guy has served with the militaries in several other countries and off the top of my head that would be singapore brazil argentina than the ones that i name primarily oh i forgot australia and i forgot to wait and i forgot new zealand all of those countries where the sky high  so when they're full they weigh about two thousand pounds hanging on the wing there's also could carry more stuff outboard of those we don't have the pylons attached but you could carry nine thousand pounds of munitions with this airplane probably as much as sather plane can carry so light strong capable maneuver boy airplanes really a fabulous airplane for  if you saw the movie top gun today might see top gun see it again you see the sky high think about the sky high sky hawk was flown by the older guys the instructors against the young guys like you  flying they were flying the f fourteen it did a pretty good job i guess if fourteen despite it being a smaller airplane with our radar and so forth it depended on the mission i don't have the machine guns mounted but twenty millimeter machine guns and the wing rode on the wings you can carry it actually carry the nuclear weapon  it never really did in war but it was designed to that's why you see the airplanes so i have to ground the nuclear bomb was a really short fat bomb and this is back in the cold war era back when we were at odds and soviet union the mission would have been classic care with a nuclear bomb toss it into one of the sub bases of the soviet union and go on your way but primarily for example in the end we carried two hundred fifty pound bombs five hundred pound bombs carry missiles like the walleye missile to carry the strike to carry the sidewinder carried the zuni rockets pods and fire a bunch of rockets that really carried a lot of different munitions they guys put the tires back on i got new tires for me if i blew a tire it's going to cost me a thousand dollars plus my mechanic has come out fix it so that's kind of the primary difference when you fly for the military it's kind of like well i use up a lot of gas i use up a lot of gas for me i try not to waste anything because it costs me a lot of money civilian you fly for the airlines at the same kind of thing here here role is to fly not  in the federal air regulations call the code of federal regulations f a a are there probably about that call paperwork the part that pertains to me is about like this so there's a lot of regulations to do it just flying in general and cars flying something like th so you've got to know you know kind of the rules of flying which are the regulations and they're going to obviously the rules apply your airplane the manual and how to operate your airplane now to handle emergency