Tammera L. Holmes is an aviator, aerospace STEM educator, and the founder and CEO of AeroStar Avion Institute NFP and AeroStar Consulting Corp.
As a Black woman, what do you consider your superpowers to be?
As a Black woman, I consider my superpowers to be inspiration, resilience, discernment, compassion, empathy and intuition.
If you could thank any Black woman history maker for her contributions to society, who would it be and why?
I would thank Bessie Coleman for sheer fortitude to do what no other Black woman had done before her: take to the sky as the first woman in the world to earn an international pilot’s license two years before Amelia Earhart!
As a young Black girl from Chicago, she witnessed the Women’s Suffrage Movement. She was the predecessor to the Tuskegee Airmen in the ’30s and the Civil Rights Movement in the ’60s. She paved her own way first, [and] then she created a legacy for girls of color all over the globe.
Why is it important for the more experienced Black women to reach back and help younger women of color?
African American women are still largely underrepresented in corporate America at large, [in] STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics, [in] nonprofits and in the C-suite. As we rise, we must blaze a trail for others to follow as well as mentor, shepherd and train others to rise even higher than us.
As a successful woman in business, what is your greatest achievement?
My greatest achievement is AeroStar, the creation of an organization that has changed the trajectory of Chicago’s minority and underserved youth through aviation exploration and STEM career enrichment. We have been recognized by the Pentagon, Forbes, industry and nonprofit sectors for the work we have accomplished providing aviation education and training to those who most would consider the least likely candidates — African American youth.
