College Board Forum 2024: Creating more diversity in the aerospace industry

Tennesse Garvey, Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals, joined WorkingNation to share his thoughts on how representation matters in his industry
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The aerospace industry is vast, but there is still a diversity gap.

Tennesse Garvey is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (ODAP) and a pilot for United Airlines. “The reality is in this industry, less than 4% of pilots, so four of every 100 pilots, look like myself. When we talk about all people of color and female pilots that number goes all the way down to less than 1%.”

ODAP’s mission is to provide greater access to opportunity for populations that have been historically underrepresented in the aviation and aerospace sectors.

Garvey joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for WorkingNation Overheard at College Board Forum 2024 in Austin, Texas.

“Our mission really is dreams to careers. We’re trying to move that needle forward in the aerospace industry by trying to introduce more talent into this space and more diverse talent, not just into the flight deck, but when you think about the aviation aerospace industry as a whole.

“We’re trying to do this in air traffic control towers. We’re trying to do this with aerospace engineering companies. We’re trying to do this with the manufacturers. We’re trying to do this with the engineering firms,” Garvey explains.

ODAP does this through community outreach programs in which they expose young students to what it takes to have a career in aerospace.

“We try to have [ODAP] members that want to volunteer and want to give back come and represent their careers because some students don’t even know these careers exist, much less [know of] people that look like them are in these fields.”

He continues, “We talk about ‘representation matters.’ Especially when we start working with Title 1 schools or even with the collegiate students, we’re seeing that students don’t even know these opportunities exist. Some students have never even seen a Black pilot.”

Garvey’s own journey started when he was very young. “My pathway to a pilot began when I was probably six years old. I grew up in Jamaica. Our house was very close to the airport and every day I’d watch airplanes come in right before they landed. They would literally fly right over our house. I was just excited about airplanes and I was very fortunate to have parents that supported me with that dream.”

Learn more about the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals.

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.