About Captain O’

Captain O here! I’m proud to be a pilot, aviation safety advocate, researcher, and wellbeing strategist whose work centers on wellbeing. In addition, I’m a visionary leader who brings a clear idea of how the future of mental health and performance in aviation should look. That idea is poured into my book, This is Your Captain Speaking.

I’ve served as a commercial airline pilot for over 34 years for a Fortune 50 company, and currently captain B767 aircrafts, with over 10,000 hours of total heavy jet flight time logged. Other aircraft experience includes B767, A300/310, B727 and B747, and, notably, thirty four years ago I was one of the first women B747 qualified. If you can’t tell — I’m passionate about aviation!

My leadership lens, along with evidence-based, scientific, self-care practices, have also helped me scale the work of Piloting 2 Wellbeing, the aviation resource company I founded that focuses on providing a new vision of aviation safety, performance, and learning.

 

My interest in mental health and performance began while I was engaged as a volunteer in professional pilot union-sponsored programs. This experience gave me a great deal of insight as to how our physical and mental health are closely tied to our capacity for high-performance. As a result, I created the first ever health and wellbeing website designed specifically for airline pilots at my airline. Building on that desire to better my coworkers’ (and my own!) health, I hold a certification in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) from Brown University, an institution known for its academic rigor in public health. In addition, I have a BS in Leadership, and an Executive Certificate in Business from UC Berkeley, where I’m also actively pursuing a medical health coaching accreditation.