Our Leadership Team

Board of Directors

President
IFALPA Representative

Tara Traynor

Vice President

Uli Fay

Secretary

McKenzie Krutsinger

Treasurer

Kyoko Kimura

Scholarship Director

Natasha Shcheglova

Communications Director

Erin Jackson

Membership Director

Chrissy Beattie

Education & Outreach Director (Interim)

Kara Hatzai

Events Director
Silent Auction Coordinator

Maggie Eickhoff

Staff

Webmaster

Christine Albertson

WAI Coordinator

Kara Hatzai

WhatsApp Coordinator

Maria Ziadie Haddad

Captain’s Club

Katherine Wallace

Archives/Museum

Volunteer Position Available

Marketing Advisor

Amanda Noll

Board of Directors Bios

Tara Traynor, President

Tara Traynor is a Captain and Line Check Pilot on the 757/767 for United Airlines. She has been on the Board of Directors of the International Society of Women Airline Pilots since 2015 and has been in her current role as President since 2019. She has also served a the IFALPA liaison for ISA+21 since 2015.

Tara got her start in aviation as a Naval Aviator after graduating from the US Naval Academy with a BS in Physics. While on active duty, she flew jets on two aircraft carrier deployments and served as the first female Advanced Strike instructor who had been deployed on an aircraft carrier. After leaving active duty in 2001, Tara spent a short time at American Airlines before being furloughed. She flew C-9s in the Navy Reserves until her retirement in 2011. In 2005, she was hired by Continental Airlines where she served in several ALPA positions, including representing the Newark based Continental First Officers from 2008-2013, leaving office at the conclusion of merging the Continental and United Airlines Pilot groups. She has flown the 737, 757/767 and 777 as a First Officer prior to upgrading on the 757/767 in 2014. She has been a Line Check Pilot for over 4 years and a Quality Control Line Check Pilot for 2.

McKenzie Krutsinger, Secretary

Hello! My name is McKenzie Krutsinger and I am incredibly honored to be the Secretary of ISA+21.

When I was 16, I stumbled into the world of aviation. I earned my Private Pilot’s license on my 18th birthday and then continued on to school at Florida Institute of Technology. Here I earned a scholarship to play softball for the Panthers while getting my degree in Aviation Management with Flight and a Minor in UAS. During school I participated in 2 Women’s Air Race Classics, WAI, and the 99s. I flight instructed at FIT before making my way to SkyWest Airlines where I flew the CRJ based out of ORD. In December 2021 I was hired at Delta Air Lines where I am currently a First Officer on the 737 based in NYC serving as a Line Validation Pilot.

Getting more women and young girls involved in the industry has been a passion of mine since I first began in this field. I have realized I am here to help others and reach an arm out to help pull them up with me. We cannot achieve our mission without the mindset of lending a hand to those behind us. I quickly got involved in mentorship wherever possible. I participated with the 99s PPLI formal mentor program and continue to help serve on the coordination team. I am also a mentor for an organization called Project Aviator and currently am working on establishing our mentorship program here at ISA. Whenever meeting young ladies, CFIs, or other female regional pilots I will be the first to offer help, advice, or my contact information to help whenever I can. 

I have been a member of ISA since 2020 and was elected to the board in 2022, and I can honestly say I  have loved every minute of it. Since discovering ISA+21 at a Women In Aviation conference I have become passionate about being involved in this organization whenever I can. It is a truly unique place designed just for us and I have taken great pride in sharing information about the group whenever and wherever possible. As a Board member I aim to continue to help grow this organization and its membership. I hope to continue the legacy and honor those who came before me and continue paving the way for those behind me.

Kyoko Kimura, Treasurer

Growing up in Japan, I had a dream of becoming an airline pilot. Those dreams were crushed when I discovered that both Japanese airlines had a policy of hiring only male pilots. Even becoming a flight attendant was beyond my reach as I was 1/2-inch too short. I decided on a different path and moved to the US in 1992 to pursue my academic goal. After earning a Masters degree in Intercultural Relations from Lesley College in Cambridge, MA, I spent a few years working in the Education field but all the while, my desire to fly continued to grow.

In 1998, I was hired by American Airlines as a flight attendant. On my trips, I met several female pilots who encouraged me to pursue my goal of becoming a pilot. With their inspiration, I started taking flight lessons. Soon after, I secured an internship position at American Flyers at MacArthur Airport in Islip, NY while continuing to work as a flight attendant. After two and a half years of flight instructing at Republic Airport in Farmingdale, NY, I was hired for my first airline pilot job at American Eagle Airlines in 2004. There, I flew Embraer 145 for 7 years as a First Officer and 3 years as a Captain. In 2011, I was awarded a scholarship through Women in Aviation for a Boeing 737 type rating from Delta Air Lines. I completed the B737 type rating training the following year and was hired by Delta in 2014. I flew the B737 for 2 years, the B757/767 for 6 years, and currently fly the Airbus 330 throughout Asia and Europe.

I’ve been an ISA member since 2012, working as a volunteer at the ISA booth for Women in Aviation conferences as well as an interviewer for the ISA+21 737/A320 scholarship program. I love the friendship and camaraderie we share at ISA+21 and hope to give back to the group by sharing my experience and knowledge as a member of the Board of Directors, which I have been a part of since 2019.

I live in Henderson, NV with my husband, Vince, who is a pilot for Spirit Airlines.

Maggie Eickhoff, Events Director

Maggie has served on the ISA+21 Board of Directors since May 2020 as Events Director. She is currently a Delta 757/767 First Officer and has served as the Membership Chair for Delta ALPA for 3 years. She also sits on the Board of the Delta Pilots Charitable Fund and volunteers for ALPA Government Affairs Committee. In her free time, she enjoys golfing and traveling with her husband, taking care of dozens of plants, and sitting on the back porch with her two cats.

Natasha Shcheglova, Scholarship Director

As a little girl, my first flight was on a TU-154 in 1980 from my hometown of Magadan to Moscow.  Although I fell in love with flying, I knew I could have never achieved my goal of becoming an airline pilot in the Soviet Union. I am forever grateful that my mother immigrated us to the United States where I discovered that girls CAN and DO become pilots!

When I arrived in the USA as a teenager, I did not speak English and had the responsibility of taking care of my seriously ill mother.  Life was extremely difficult.  I overloaded on ESL classes in high school and worked three jobs to take care of my mother.  I received an academic scholarship to the University of Washington and followed a pre-med path until I met someone who claimed that he was going to become an airline pilot. That piqued my interest in general aviation and, with my mentor’s gift of a discovery flight, reignited the “sleeping flying bug” of my childhood.

I transferred to Embry-Riddle to pursue a degree in aviation and after graduating, I flight instructed to build time.  In 1999, I was hired at American Eagle Airlines and flew the ATR-72 in the Caribbean islands chain before transferring to the E-145 for the next fifteen years.  In 2016, I finally reached my dream of becoming a First Officer for American Airlines, where I currently fly the A320 out of DFW.

I have been an ISA+21 member since 2013, have been assisting with the scholarship program since 2018 and have served as a Scholarship Director since 2020. During the last two years, I have helped establish the Francesca Norris Memorial Scholarship, created opportunities for co-sponsoring scholarships with flight schools and airlines, established working relationships with universities and colleges with flight training programs, updated the scholarship application package and selection process and created scholarship selection committees. My plans for ISA+21 Scholarship program include expansion of donor base through co-sponsoring scholarships with universities, airlines, and other aviation organizations, raising more funds for our scholarship program and awarding more scholarships. Through our scholarship program ISA+21 is changing the lives of women around the world and propelling them into the major airlines’ flight decks. I pledge to continue working tirelessly to assist as many women as I can to achieve their dreams of becoming airline pilots.

Chrissy Beattie, Membership Director

G’Day! My name is Chrissy I was born and raised in Australia and now am living on a ranch in Montana with my (recent!) husband Mark and Brittany Spaniel puppy Roo.

My aviation journey started out after my late father Neil passed away from Pancreatic cancer December 2008. He was a Test Pilot for the Australian Airforce and went to Empire Test Pilot School, then Qantas. His success and career has been my inspiration and driven me to get to where I am today. He always told me I could be anything I wanted to be, as long as I put my mind to it. After highschool I studied I.T. and landed a role at a private hospital writing code for a cardiovascular program. When my Father died I wanted to feel closer to him so I booked a trial flight. When we took off, I immediately knew becoming a pilot had to be my future. I worked multiple jobs at a time, (hospitality, A320/21 cabin crew, Aviator Magazine writer, etc) and funded my aviation career. I was awarded a scholarship through the ‘Australian Women in Aviation program’ which helped me get my PPL. From here I flew multiple trips around Australia, around 2 weeks at a time, exploring the outback and remote places to build up hours and experience until I got accepted into my Aviation Degree where I completed my CPL and Bachelor in Aviation.

My first job was in outback Central Australia- Ayers Rock, as the Deputy Chief Pilot for a small scenic/charter company. After 4 years, I moved to New Zealand for a similar role. A year later I found SkyWest as my next venture and landed in the USA, June 2018. I was on the ERJ-175 and upgraded to Captain in 2021. 

After attending the ISA+21 conference in Atlanta last year and meeting the hiring team, it led me to getting my new job with United as a First Officer on the 737! I just recently got hired at the United training department, teaching sim on the 737 and still flying a few days a month.

One of my side hobbies is home construction. I run a little side business in Montana renovating houses and rebuilding decks, doing all the construction by myself. I love hunting and fishing and exploring the world. My husband Mark is an outfitter and also runs the outdoors portion of the working ranch we live on. So, with hunting and fishing being his profession, it’s a huge part of our lives. 

Having received a female pilot scholarship as a struggling young girl, then getting my dream job at United as a result of attending an ISA+21 event, I hold these organizations close to my heart and know how lifechanging a little help can be. I would love the opportunity to pay it forward!

Erin Jackson, Communications Director

I have been honored to serve on the ISA+21 BOD in the Communications capacity for the past 4 years. I create the News blasts that go out to ISA+21 members, the scholarship blasts for Aspiring members, and the informational blasts for Support members. I also build and run the content on all four of ISA+21’s public-facing social media platforms with the help of an amazing comms team. Another duty that I have had the honor of fulfilling is interviewing with many media personnel all over the world, and multiple doctorate candidates at various universities regarding the low percentage of female airline pilots.

I am a newly minted 737 captain for American Airlines, and also a mom of 5 awesome kiddos.. two in college, one in the United States Army Band, and two in high school. I also have two wonderful step-sons, one of which is a pilot for Mesa. My husband, Rob, is a 737 check pilot for United, and also a Support member of ISA+21.

-- The Board of Directors and Committee members are made up of volunteers --