Aurora grad finds joy in training pilots
Soaring to new heights is a passion for Aurora graduate Bethany (Janzen) McFadden. Living as a commercial pilot in Kearney, each new horizon brings new challenges that she is eager to overcome.
“I love how it’s just different every day,” McFadden began. “Every day we’re going to different places; there’s always new challenges; you can always improve on your abilities; you don’t get bored; and you don’t get complacent.”
McFadden, the daughter of Danny and Lora Janzen, grew up with her three older brothers on the family farm south of Aurora.
According to McFadden, she had a strong fascination for flying since her childhood.
“My dad is pretty passionate about aviation,” she stated. “He was never a pilot or anything like that, but my parents would take us to air shows growing up or to the airport and we’d see airplanes or even just the spray planes in the summer and fall. I just grew up seeing it.”
Following her graduation from Aurora High School in 2014, the graduate went to Wayne State College to study international business.
“I studied business, but I knew I wanted to further my education after college,” she said. “That’s when I decided to give aviation a try and (during) my first flight, I just fell in love with it and wanted to pursue it.”
Following her time at Wayne State, she started training to become a pilot at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks along with additional training in Loveland and Colorado Springs, Colo. with her husband, Teague, whom she married in 2019 and also shares a passion for flying with as a commercial pilot.
After McFadden became a commercial pilot and certified flight instructor in 2021, the couple found themselves looking toward Kearney to take off in their careers.
“Originally, we planned on going to the airlines, but we fell in love with Kearney and the opportunities here,” she said. “We actually found quite a bit for commercial and corporate pilots.”
Since moving to Kearney, the young couple primarily work as pilots with Midwest Management Solutions.
“Midwest Management Solutions manages the aircraft and the airplanes for a lot of different companies,” McFadden explained.
Through working with Midwest Management Solutions, McFadden works with a variety of companies within Nebraska.
“Companies themselves own the aircraft and Midwest Management makes sure maintenance is done and all that stuff,” she continued. “Within Midwest Management, I can apply for different companies, but I’m typically with Downey Drilling. For that company, I’m flying around the owner and some of their employees to different spots.”
Having a job requiring efficient communication skills, McFadden expressed that working with multiple people daily has become a highlight in her career.
“I love having those constant challenges and ways to improve in your professional life and I enjoy the people I fly with,” McFadden commented. “It’s fun to be able to fly different people and just learn about other businesses and their lives.”
Alongside flying different companies out, McFadden has also flown scientists around during the crane migration season along flight routes in the spring and fall.
“There are two routes that go up, but we take up scientists out of Grand Island and Kearney,” she commented. “We fly along the river and we’ve got the whooping crane migration that comes through,” she said. “Those are nice sunrise flights and it’s always really pretty.”
While there is always the challenge with weather and navigating different terrain, one challenge that has pushed the pilot is being among the 6 percent of women who work as pilots.
“There’s been a couple times where it’s been negative or you can just feel that people don’t necessarily think that you should be a pilot or I’ve had a lot people assume that I’m actually a flight attendant,” she stated. “But it’s mostly been a good experience and I grew up with three older brothers so I was always used to being more in a male-dominated world and never felt too out of place.”
With the encouragement she received from her instructors and peers, McFadden gives just as much encouragement to her students that she instructs out of Grand Island and Kearney.
“As a flight instructor, I enjoy watching my students, who are mostly high school and college-age students,” McFadden shared. “I enjoy watching them just gain confidence and how that carries over into different parts of their life.”
While not working as a pilot or a flight instructor, McFadden has worked as a Future Problem Solvers (FPS) evaluator.
“We’ll each get a stack of booklets from middle school or high school students to evaluate them, and then for the qualifying booklet, state booklet and the internationals,” she said.
The pilot said it offers a way for her to continue being part of the program since she was a student in Aurora’s chapter.
“It’s just more of a passion that I enjoy, being able to stay involved in it and kind of see what new topics are,” she said. “It’s always been fun.”
Another passion that McFadden shared is the missionary work that she had done with her mother in Haiti.
“My mom and I have gone to Haiti several times for various mission work,” she said. “Specifically, like business development, helping people build businesses, build the economy, which helps in so many different ways.”
Due to the current conflicts in Haiti, they have been unable to travel to continue their missionary work there. McFadden expressed her eagerness to return to Haiti once it’s safe.
“Especially with my international business degree, I do love business, I love building and helping people build their own small businesses,” she commented. “I would like to be able to incorporate that more into my life.”
McFadden shared that she and Teague are expecting their first child, who they will be thrilled to meet in January.
While McFadden continues to pursue her passion for flying, she hopes to grow that passion and become a role model for the next generation of pilots.
“Most of my students I take now are females and I’ve enjoyed working with female students and just building them up,” she said. “I didn’t have many female instructors around me when I was going through training. It was just really encouraging to have when you see a female doing the job that you want to have someday.”