I just love like being able to see something go from broken to fixed. Whenever you see the planes that we work on in the sky, you know, "I put that in the air," which is pretty cool.
My name is Erin Haas Martin. I'm 24 years old. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I'm an aircraft mechanic. I make about $55,000 a year.
In high school, I was pretty much a nerd, so like I was very heavy on the books, I graduated really high in my class and my plans were to go to college. But after high school, I was pretty burnt out. So I decided to join the Marine Corps, which had been like one of my dreams.
I worked on CH-53s, which is the largest helicopter in the United States military. You think of helicopters, and you think of something kind of small. But it was a big, big girl, very big.
I really enjoyed my time in the Marine Corps, but I didn't know if I wanted to do it as a career or not. So I decided to transition out. I got out in December of 2019, so I moved back home and then I found out about PSA.
A lot of companies don't really try to help veterans transition to civilian side of things, so they offered to pay for my A&P license, which I did not have at the time.
And then, relocation stipends, sign-on bonuses, experience bonuses, toolbox bonuses, like so much stuff that I couldn't really pass up.
I am living with my parents right now, so I'm saving up to get a house. It's also nice that my parents are helping me take care of my cat and my dog, because I have a Corgi and he's very needy, wants to play all the time.
So I worked night shift in the Marine Corps for about three years, so I'm pretty used to basically being a vampire, sleeping during the day and working at night. I'll wake up around 4:00 p.m., drag myself out of bed, go make some coffee.
I'll try to go work out before work. I have a home gym, so I don't really have to go anywhere, and then I'll eat breakfast. But it's typically dinner food because it's dinner time and then I'll get ready for work, take a shower, get dressed, pack my stuff up, pack my lunch up and then head to work. I live about 30 minutes away from work. Come to work, clock in and then get ready for the day.
Usually when I come into work, we do our meeting. We figure out what we're working on, we get scheduled to airplanes. So, it could go from checking to make sure the lights are working to checking to see if the tire pressures are correct.
Cleaning and inspecting something, to sitting somewhere with the multimeter in a very uncomfortable spot, making sure you're getting what you need to be seeing on the multimeter.
You should never have a question about anything that you're doing in the manual. If you do have a question, there's plenty of people here to help you. But, usually the manuals are like Barney-style, super simple to understand.
Whenever work is done, I can just go home and go straight to sleep.
I try to flip my schedule on the weekends. So instead of being a vampire, I try to wake up early and then try to enjoy some of the daylight, and especially since the weather is getting good, and hanging out with my friends and family.
So in aviation, there's really not a lot of women, especially like mechanics side. So there's two women that work on my shift. All of my leads or supervisors are mostly men. I feel like no one really sees the fact that I'm a girl here, which is really nice because I've struggled with that a lot.
I was really good at my job in the Marines, I'm not going to lie. A lot of people didn't really like that, especially coming from the fact that I'm a woman. Some things, yeah, I do struggle with because I'm small-statured, I do need help with.
There has been plenty of times where people have asked for my help to fit into small spaces or use my hand to fit into a small space, like, everybody has their weaknesses and their strengths.
And I try to keep up with the boys, but some things I just can't do. But there's some things they can't do.
Right now, roughly, I make about $55,000 a year. When I first started, I was making about $50,000 a year. And then in the next couple of years, I plan on making about $60,000 a year. Long-term goal, possibly at a different airline or maybe at PSA. Who knows? I hope to be making about six figures. I know that won't happen anytime soon, but that's my goal.
You have flight benefits, you can pretty much fly all throughout the world, either free or very discounted. I personally haven't used my flight benefits yet because of Covid, but I am excited about using them and letting my friends and family use them, which is really cool that I can take people with me. And it's not just me by myself.
In the Marine Corps, you have medical benefits, you have Tricare, which is OK insurance like they pay for everything, but you don't necessarily get the best medical care. So now I can choose my doctors and where I want to go and the company like helps match what I pay kind of. I get a 401(k), the company also matches me on that, which is really cool.
I'm really happy with this job. My favorite part, besides actually coming to work, is probably being able to go home and like not have to worry about work. Like in the military, you're constantly worried about your Marines, your junior Marines. You're away from your family and all you have is your Marines, your Marines are your new family now. So that was really stressful for me. I stopped focusing on myself completely while I was in the Marine Corps.
So now I can kind of focus on myself again and get my head straight and just basically be able to have a job where I enjoy and then go home and have a life and free time that I enjoy outside of work as well. You would think like, you're fixing airplanes, it's probably stressful. Sure, it's stressful sometimes at work, but I can go home and close my eyes and not have to worry about anything else.
Don't be afraid to be the only girl in your class getting your A&P license or the only girl in your company turning wrenches or the only girl in your family turning wrenches, this goes for any job that's out of the norm for women, basically. Do what makes you happy and don't be afraid of what other people think.