Carey Dunai Lohrenz (born October 5, 1968) is a former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy who was one of the first fully qualified female naval aviators to fly the F-14 Tomcat in the U.S. military.
People think that fighter pilots aren’t afraid of anything, and yet that’s not true,” she says. “It’s that we’ve learned and developed the ability to work through fear, and flip it, and make it actionable, so that it works for us, and not against us.”
“Midwestern stoicism … that ability to just do the work with no fanfare” may be uniquely Wisconsin
“Those of us who grow up in a system thinking, ‘All I have do is perform, and my performance will speak for itself’ can actually be left behind,”
Anything great that you’re going to want to accomplish is going to involve fear and discomfort, and making other people uncomfortable,” she says. “But you have to go for it anyway. That’s how you make a difference.”
I wanted to fly fighters because those pilots were the cream of the crop,” she says. “I thought to myself, Well, it takes about two years to get through this program. So maybe by the time I’m done, they will have lifted the law.”
I was so stoked. When those assignments came out, based on my performance, I was assigned to fly the F-14 Tomcat,”
“When you hear these little comments, whether it’s about your fingernail polish or your hair or what you’re wearing at the time, it can feel like the slow drop of Chinese water torture,” Lohrenz recalls. “When you’re there to fly this magnificent fighter jet, it chips away at you.”
“All I wanted desperately was just to blend in and be a fighter pilot, not a female fighter pilot,” she says. “The plane doesn’t know what gender you are. The plane just wants to fly.”
It was big, it was heavy and it tended to be slightly underpowered,” Lohrenz says. “You’re coming across the back end of that aircraft carrier, going about 165 miles an hour, and you slam down on that deck and come to a complete stop in just under 1.2 seconds.”
“U.S. Navy Adm. James A. Winnefeld, right, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks to Carey Lohrenz, the first female F-14 Tomcat aircraft pilot in the Navy, during 2013 Joint Women's Leadership 130606-D-HU462-118So, knowing that history and understanding that every day I showed up, I was standing on the shoulders of greatness,” she says. “Calm is your superpower, but the relentless scrutiny simply because I was a woman, that was nonstop.”
“So, knowing that history and understanding that every day I showed up, I was standing on the shoulders of greatness,” she says. “Calm is your superpower, but the relentless scrutiny simply because I was a woman, that was nonstop.”
“ Fearless Leadership: High-Performance Lessons from the Flight Deck ” and “ Span of Control: What to do When You Are Under Pressure, Overwhelmed and Ready to Get What You Really Want .“
“I faced a lot of up and downs. But, I started my career in the cockpit and I ended my career in the cockpit. I wouldn’t have it any other way,”
“I’m like, ‘OK, what are your resources? What are your threats?’ And then in big jumbo sidewalk chalk I drew this strategic plan for him in under 10 minutes. And he ran in, got a camera and took a picture,” Lohrenz says. “And next thing you know I'm starting a strategic planning consulting career.”
“At the end of the day it’s not about me. It’s what can somebody do with the lessons that I learned. If there’s part of my story that I can share — or if there’s somebody who looks at me and thinks, Oh my gosh, maybe I can do that too — then it’s worth it,”
Courage does not mean the absence of fear, it means you have to feel the fear and go for it anyway,”
