{"id":27124,"date":"2023-11-10T02:02:56","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T02:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=27124"},"modified":"2023-11-10T02:09:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T02:09:25","slug":"shelly-dezevallos-focused-on-mentoring-and-bringing-more-women-into-aviation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/state-news\/texas\/shelly-dezevallos-focused-on-mentoring-and-bringing-more-women-into-aviation\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Shelly deZevallos, Focused On Mentoring and Bringing More Women Into Aviation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo above – Shelly deZevallos with a Baron B58. She\u00c2\u00a0was being photographed for the \u2018Top 30 Women of Houston\u2019 event that she was awarded in 2021.\u00c2\u00a0<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Penny Rafferty Hamilton, Ph.D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shelly deZevallos<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Shelly deZevallos is one of those stellar women in aviation who is as comfortable with a wrench on the spinner of her twin Beechcraft Baron 58 as she is flying in the left seat. She is committed to mentoring and bringing more women into the exciting world of aviation and aerospace. As the mother of twin girls, she hopes one day they will fly, too. Shelly is quite the role model. Graduate degrees, excellent presentation skills, significant aviation knowledge, experience, and skills. She is one of the better multi-taskers in our industry.

How did you first get inspired to work in the aviation industry?<\/strong>

\u201cI\u2019ve always been inspired by aviators and the aviation industry. My first \u2018job\u2019 in the industry was sweeping hangars when I was 8 years old. I basically grew up at my dad\u2019s business \u2013 he ran (and still does) a flight school, an airport, and aircraft sales. My dad flew, my grandfather flew – I really grew up as a kid thinking everyone flew just like everyone was driving! I realized when I was about 13 or 14 years old that most people did not fly \u2013 and I\u2019ve been working on getting more people to learn to fly ever since!

I didn\u2019t always know if I wanted to work in the aviation industry \u2013 but always knew I wanted to fly. Two things in life you can never replace are time and people. Flying helps mitigate the loosing time that you can\u2019t replace issue.  My other comment: Never waste your time with people who waste your time. Life is short — surround yourself with folks who lift others up \u2013 including you!

My dad taught me a lot about flying \u2013 when I was 14, he sat me down and said he was going to teach me to fly \u2013 so that If I couldn\u2019t make it through college, I\u2019d have a backup plan. That advice turned out to be one of the most important lessons of my life \u2013 backup plans!   So – when I was 16, he taught me to fly — okay \u2013 he tried<\/em> to teach me how to fly. You know how hard it is to teach one of your kids to drive? Well \u2013 it\u2019s just as hard, maybe a bit harder, to teach them how to fly. C.G. \u201cHank\u201d Henry was the instructor who did the last couple of hours with me before I soloed. He was an amazing man \u2013 was West Houston Airport\u2019s Chief Pilot for decades \u2013 and still one of the most accomplished pilots I\u2019ve ever met.  He always said, \u2018Aviate. Navigate. Communicate,\u2019 – which means first and always first \u2013 fly the plane. Then figure out where you are and where you want to go. Then, let others know where you are going. 

A few years after earning a degree in college (I did finish–and become the first person in my family to earn a college degree) Cessna Aircraft Company (now TextronAir) started building the single engine piston line in 1995 \u2013 the first aircraft delivered in November of 1996, after a 10-year production halt due to liability laws. I wanted to help bring those new airplanes to every flight school in the country, so I applied and became a regional sales manager for Cessna. It was a dream job for several years \u2013 I covered Texas and most surrounding states – flying and demonstrating the single engine line\u2013 Skyhawks, Skylanes, Stationairs and turbo Skylane and turbo Stationair. Great planes \u2013 great company! It all ended in a fell swoop after 9\/11 when thousands of employees were laid off in a matter of 18 months, of which I was just one. I had just started working on my MBA when I was laid off \u2013 those studies kept me busy – and I worked in software sales for a short time. Then I became a contractor with AOPA \u2013 advocating for issues across Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Louisiana. I was doing what I loved to do \u2013 policy, flying and advocating for pilots!  I stayed with AOPA for several years \u2013 testified in front of legislators and met many others \u2013 and several state aviation directors like Tom Baca (New Mexico Aviation Director), David Fulton (TxDOT), and Vic Byrd (Oklahoma).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pictured above, from left are, Greg Pecoraro, President and CEO, NASAO; Dr. Shelly deZevallos, Chair, TxDOT Aviation Advisory Committee; Marc Williams, Executive Director, TxDOT; Congressman Sam Graves, Chair, House of Representatives, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; and Dan Harmon, TxDOT, Director of Aviation. Photo courtesy of Texas Transportation Institute.<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With my work now, as president of West Houston Airport and the same company my dad founded, I have the opportunity to work with great leaders such as Dan Harmon \u2013 Director of Aviation at the Texas Department of Transportation – in my role as Chair of the Texas DOT Aviation Advisory Committee.\u201d

What was your first memory of aviation?<\/strong>

\u201cSweeping hangars and alphabetizing \u2018Jepp Charts\u2019 (Jeppesen charts) are my first memories of aviation. My dad was in the charter and flight school business. My sister and I would file Jepp Charts for him when we would get back from school or on the weekends \u2013 occasionally I\u2019d mess up one- oops!  For those of us you who are younger than me – under 45\/50ish – you used to have to update the Jeppesen charts manually \u2013 each airport\u2019s approach was printed on a piece of paper \u2013 and you had to carry those in a binder (binders) with all the approach plates when you flew.  I\u2019d file those approach plates and learn the names of cities and states across the country (nailed geography in high school). Those early tasks of sweeping hangars and alphabetizing Jepps were my first memories of aviation.\u201d

Who inspired you the most?<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Woody Lesikar and his daughter, Shelly deZevallos, enjoy a time-out at an exhibitor booth at the recent NBAA-BACE Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas. Dr. deZevallos serves as a NBAA Board member. <\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy dad – Woody Lesikar. Pilot. Entrepreneur. Businessman. Airport Owner. Dad Extraordinaire. He taught me the value of hard work, persistence, dreams, learning and public service.  When I was a kid about 8 or 9, I remember going into a bookstore with him. My sister and I had looked around and I found four or five books I wanted to read. I\u2019ll never forget going up to him and asking him which one I should get. He said, \u2018Sweetie, whatever books you promise to read, I promise to get them for you.\u2019 That was the impetus of my learning and the start of a lifelong passion of reading. I\u2019ll never forget when he was going through one of the roughest financial times of his life \u2013 and he still bought me books.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was 16 years old \u2013 I started my trek to college — I waitressed and worked in the Texas Legislature to help pay for expenses. We were so broke our church pastor drove up to Austin and gave me a $600 check to help pay for tuition and apartment rent. Years later when I was laid off at Cessna, Dad didn\u2019t cajole me \u2013 he told me to learn from it \u2013 use my back up plan. Thousands of people around our country had gone through so much more on 9\/11\u2013 loss of a family member, war, economic depression, entire families being laid off.  \u2018Get up\u2019.  \u2018Keep working.\u2019 Sometimes our biggest lessons are learned from our failures.

Just like flying\u201c\u2026it\u2019s not necessarily the good landings we always learn from \u2013 at times it\u2019s the bad ones where we have to react and recover quickly that we learn the most from.\u201d 

Advice for the other women inside our industry or thinking about aviation and aerospace?<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr. Becky Lutte, left, with Shelly deZevallos. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo for it!!!!  So many women have taken those first steps in aviation and aerospace to help the industry move forward. The Aviation and Aerospace industry is literally on the cusp of a phenomenal change \u2013 we\u2019re about to put in Urban Air Mobility and Advanced Air Mobility that is going to be an entirely new industry! These are literally some of the most exciting times in our industry and some of the best times in terms of employment opportunities.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any additional background about you and your career that readers should know?<\/strong>

\u201cI\u2019d like to refer to one of my first responses \u2013 about having a backup plan. Just like an airplane \u2013 and flying \u2013 have a backup plan. My dad taught me to fly so I would have a \u2018back up \u2018plan in case I couldn\u2019t finish college. It was sound advice for life overall and I\u2019ve followed it ever since.   Life has ups and downs \u2013 being prepared and having a back up plan is something I\u2019ve always believed \u2013 just like airplane systems are. As an example, when I was laid off from Cessna \u2013 I immediately started utilizing my MBA. Just like systems in flight \u2013 you have a compass and directional gyro (DG). You have hydraulics to lower a landing gear, or you can do so manually.  (NOTE: airplane systems and backups are not always the exact same). EVERY industry has its ups and downs \u2013 so we must make sure we have our OWN back up plans. Mine has been my education. Yours may be your hobby turned into a passion or an education or another industry entirely. If you can sell an airplane, you can sell a car or a software program or a widget of some kind.  I personally ended up utilizing my education \u2013 including my doctorate (in Aviation and Aerospace science) – as an adjunct professor for a couple of years and research into policy questions. When I lost my job at Cessna I was devastated. It hurt. So many people lost their jobs there \u2013 even husband and wife teams – I was able to fall back on my MBA and go into software sales \u2013 which I wasn\u2019t great at because I didn\u2019t have the same passion that I did for aviation \u2013 but I kept moving forward. Keep flying. Always fly the plane. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate. Never give up on YOUR passion. Never give up on what keeps YOU moving forward. NEVER quit flying. It\u2019s the most exciting career out there!\u201d
                                                                ~
Shelly Lesikar deZevallos is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A & M University, and Oklahoma State University. She volunteers as a Board member of the National Business Aviation Association and for the Experimental Aircraft Association. Living in the Houston-area with her aviator husband, Chris, the deZevallos family contributes time and talent to their community. Shelly is a recipient of the Houston Business Journal \u201cWomen Who Mean Business Award.\u201d She serves on the Advisory Board of The Boeing Center for Aviation and Aerospace Safety at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. She is President of the West Houston Airport and chairs the Texas Department of Transportation Aviation Advisory Committee. I sum up the flight path of Dr. deZevallos with a Rosalynn Carter quote, \u201cYou have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo above – Shelly deZevallos with a Baron B58. She\u00c2\u00a0was being photographed for the \u2018Top 30 Women of Houston\u2019 event that she was awarded in 2021.\u00c2\u00a0 By Penny Rafferty Hamilton, Ph.D. Shelly deZevallos is one of those stellar women in aviation who is as comfortable with a wrench on the spinner of her twin Beechcraft […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,115,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-national-news","category-texas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Shelly-with-plane-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27124"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27135,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27124\/revisions\/27135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}