Her Story
About Avione
I served in the United States Navy as a construction mechanic in the Seabees, starting my military career at age 18 with my first duty station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Women weren't allowed in construction battalions until 1994 because they were considered combat situations, even though we'd been in the Seabees since 1972. After the military, I faced significant gender discrimination - nobody would hire me in my field because I was a construction mechanic and the men didn't allow female CBs to work in their profession. But the Navy had given me a top-secret clearance, and that opened doors they never expected. They taught me how to write databases in 1984, trained me to drive Boston Whalers and tractor trailers delivering ordnance to ships and submarines in Norfolk. I became a registered representative for the NASD, worked for an accountant for 11 years doing tax preparation and financial statements, and built an incredibly diverse skill set. I've been volunteering since my son was young - he's turning 30 in a couple weeks - and I'm involved with two military museums. Recently, I founded the Sisterhood of the Seabees, an all-inclusive women's empowerment and awareness group addressing the epidemic of military sexual trauma and gender discrimination that dates back to the 1940s. My platform is about humanitarian kindness - I make and sell crafts, donate proceeds to charity, send care packages to troops, and put every extra penny into expanding the sisterhood. I work to live, not live to work, and my dedication is to my God, my family, my country, and myself.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Avione
01What do you attribute your success to?
My success comes from my dedication to my God, my family, my country, and myself - that's really what my career has been built on. When the military tried to deter me by giving me a top-secret clearance because they didn't know what to do with a female construction mechanic, it completely backfired on them. I ended up working for higher-ranking officials and learning a lot more than they did, intellectually, which turned out to be a bigger bonus than being a mechanic. I've always believed in working to live, not living to work, and I've tried to gain knowledge and skills in everything I do. I encourage everybody to have a life - you can live without having a life, but why would you? Get a life.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge I'm addressing is an epidemic of gender discrimination and military sexual trauma that dates back to the 1940s. I found out in the beginning of March that female service members have been called derogatory names like 'mattresses' - the Marines called them WMs for Women Marines, which men changed to mean 'women mattresses,' and this spread to all the other forces. In the military, there's something called MST, Military Sexual Trauma, which is basically rape, and they give you a 10 percent disability rating for it. If you get in a car accident and break your leg, you get 100 percent, but for being raped, just 10 percent - that's just crazy. This discrimination continues to this day, and that's what my Sisterhood of the Seabees group is working to bring awareness to and change.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are honesty, inclusivity, and humanitarian kindness. I'm unfiltered, blunt, honest, and crude, and I really don't care what people think - my private life is my business, not a secret, and I have no shame in being an open book. My sisterhood platform is all-inclusive - I don't care who you worship, who you sleep with, how many nationalities you are, if you're an immigrant or non-immigrant, male or female, military or non-military. As long as people are kind, respectable, responsible adult human beings that can adult, they're welcome. I hate posers and people who pretend they're somebody they're not, and I refuse to be a part of that. The women of America birth the nation, and it's about time we actually parented them. I'm not out to make money - my husband does well, we have retirement income, and I'm 100 percent disabled veteran. Whatever money I make, I put back into my sisterhood project because my platform is humanitarian kindness.
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