Lunch & Learn with Jill Gernetzke - Wingwalker, Mechanic, Mentor, EXPANDER

Written By Beth White

Our WOMEN BUILD PLANES crew gathered for a Lunch & Learn with Jill Gernetzke—A&P, business owner, and former wingwalker. Jill spoke plainly about pathway-making in aviation: ignore the naysayers, find your cheerleaders, and stay laser-focused when the work carries real consequences. She walked us through her wingwalking technique, the discipline behind maintenance, and why a signature in a logbook is a promise you must stand behind.

Jill reminded us that lineage matters. She worked in Vermont years ago, mentored Cliff (our beloved A&P/IA), and helped light the spark for youth through ACE Camp. When we checked with the FSDO, we learned fewer than ten women have ever been granted an A&P in Vermont—a stark data point that underscores how much her example matters here.

One story landed especially hard. In 2005, Jill brought Soviet WWII airwomen to the United States, amplifying the legacy of the famed “Night Witches” and their sister regiments. She raised the funds, organized the tour, and filled auditoriums so mechanics, pilots, and students could hear from women who flew and fixed under fire.

Sessions like this belong in our hangar and at our lunch table. Expanders like Jill helps everyone–from our nine-year-old to our granny-builder–picture themselves in these fields. We are grateful for her candor, her legacy, and for sharing her time with us. Our team left more certain about what is possible.

Beth White

Education Possibilitarian, Artist, Writer, Doula, Mentor, Aviatrix, Breast Cancer Survivor, Pilot-in-Command at Habitat for Aviation


In the spring of 2022, Beth White emerged from a 10-month battle with breast cancer with an idea: to create an apprenticeship program at Franklin County State Airport where youth work alongside adult mentors servicing conventional and electric aircraft. A pilot and airplane mechanic apprentice herself, and with family roots in the trades, Habitat for Aviation provides an taxilane for world learning opportunities for youth and adults who love to work with their hands to enter the FAA’s apprenticeship certification track. Each day she puts systems in place that make real John Dewey’s philosophy that we “learn best what we live” – a deep throughline from her time at Antioch University New England and as Regional Director for Big Picture Learning. Each learning experience is grounded in relationships, relevance, and practice. In October, 2023, Habitat for Aviation launched its Women Build Planes program, where an all-female team of Modern Day Rosies is building an airplane at Franklin County Airport, in northwestern Vermont, to show folks everywhere that despite the fact that only 2.6% of airplane mechanics are female, women BUILD, FLY, and FIX airplanes.

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