EAA offered their first ever Women’s Introduction to Building workshop on Tuesday afternoon and it demonstrated that there is a huge, pent-up demand for such programs. Forty-eight women crowded into the Sheet Metal Workshop to build a shop notebook binder using basic aircraft metal working techniques…measuring, drilling, de-burring, clamping and Cleco-ing, and using pull rivets. The enthusiasm was off-the-chart and the women clearly had lots of fun. Being a first-run, there were lots of cliches and lessons learned but the women rolled with the challenges and spirits remained high.
Cheers to Val Westedt and her crew for a job well done! Considering the interest, I’m sure we will see more workshops at future AirVentures.
Major kudos should be extended to Zenith Aircraft for providing the shop-binder kits, Aircraft Spruce for their support of the Metal Building Workshop, Charlie Becker of the EAA for his vision to hold the workshop, and, especially, Val Westedt, who organized and led the event.
