Everyday Wonder Women
Each week, I sit down with a woman you probably never heard of before—but trust me, by the end, you’ll be so glad you did. This is where we get real about the tough stuff women go through, the grit it takes to get through it, and the lessons they pick up along the way. It’s honest, inspiring, and full of stories you won’t forget.
Everyday Wonder Women
Episode 11: 🎖️May Military Series...Cockpit dreams and cowgirl grit with Heather Sharp
Heather Sharp, a remarkable woman who rose from her cowgirl roots to become an airline pilot when only 1% of pilots were female, shares her extraordinary journey of persistence through adversity, devastating accidents, and an against-all-odds recovery.
• Raised by a veterinarian father and professional rodeo cowgirl mother
• Inspired by a high school teacher who inspired her to choose "pilot" over "flight attendant" on career day
• Navigated the male-dominated aviation world with humor and determination
• Survived a car crash that left her with a crushed pelvis and shattered collarbone
• Overcame a traumatic brain injury from a falling tree that left her unable to identify letters or count money
• Used equine therapy as a crucial element in her miraculous recovery
• Returned to flying commercial jets after six and a half years of rehabilitation
If you want more laugh-out-loud family stories and proof that Heather Sharp's life really is never dull, grab her book "Never Dull" on Amazon or at heathersharp.com. Head over to our Instagram @EverydayWonderWomen, find the post for this episode, and drop a comment to receive a "Why Not Me?" sticker.
So for the month of May, I wanted to do something a little different with the podcast. Memorial Day is coming up and I thought "why not take all of May to shine a light on women involved with the military, the ones who've served, sacrificed and carried more than their fair share, often quietly, without recognition and with the strength that most of us can only hope to understand. So buckle up. Today's guest she's got a story that starts with a horse and ends with a cockpit of a jumbo jet. Heather Sharp has lived about nine lives and somehow made them all interesting. She's also the author of Never Dull, which, let me tell you, is the perfect title for her story. You're going to love her. Come with me to meet Heather Sharp. I loved your talk here at Art of the Cowgirl.
Heather Sharp:Thank you. It was so fun to do to celebrate the cowgirls, the cowgirl attitude and the life lessons that the older people have taught us.
Stacee:Tell us a little bit about your life.
Heather Sharp:My dad was a veterinarian. My mom was a professional cowgirl. In 1961, she went to the NFR. My uncle was a world champion cowboy, Jack Roddy, in 66 and 68. He won the steer wrestling. In my youth I was on the path to follow in my family's footsteps and become a rodeo star or a horse trainer. And at career day at high school that was not a box that I could check I said, "oh, flight attendant, I'll do that, thankfully. The teacher said, Heather, why didn't you check pilot? And I said, oh no, they don't let girls do that. She said, yeah, they do. You should try. And at the time only 1% of pilots were females.
Stacee:Did you just go to undergrad and then on to flight school?
Heather Sharp:Right, so I went to undergrad at Cal Poly. You heard the story about my graduation present. Should I say that here? So mom was highly augmented. She had her eyes done her nose, done her cheeks, done her chin, done her teeth, done her boobs, her butt. She had it all. And when I was in high school I said Mom, that is ridiculous. And she said, heather, if you had a car, you would maintain it. Mom and I had a difference of opinion, and in the book Never Dull, I talk about all the hysterical things of mom valuing beauty. And I did not. So at high school graduation, in front of a bunch of people, she said Heather, your dad and I have talked about it. And for graduation I thought, oh my gosh, here it comes. Here it comes, I'm going to give flying lessons. She says " you boobies? I said what I want a flying lesson. And she goes eh, the going to get flying lessons. Where can I get you boobies? I said what I want a flying lesson. She goes eh, the boobs will get you further. So I didn't get the boobs, I didn't get the flying lessons and because it was not handed to me and I had to work for it, that made it more valuable.
Heather Sharp:And then went to cal poly, became a flight instructor. Then I flew freight for a year for Ameriflight in Oakland, then got hired by American Eagle. So I'm flying a 19 seat propeller airplane with a captain and he says to me and we're going to fly a four-day trip, and he says he goes, "ou are the empty kitchen. I said, what is the empty kitchen? What does that mean? If you're here, there's an empty kitchen somewhere. I'm like, oh, and so I came right back. I said well, well, it's better than being the empty bedroom.
Heather Sharp:And I, I think the fact that I sassed back, he gave me the briefing that I am not allowed to fly. I can sit there and work the radio and normally you switch off every other leg. The captain flies, the co-pilot flies, bing, bing, bing, and that's how it's going to be. And I said, oh, yes, sir. So for three and a half days I worked the radio and I had the attitude of, eh, you can't fix stupid, it's going to be pointless to argue with him. He wasn't going to allow me to fly -three and a half days. Oh, whatever, we were leaving San Jose, California. We had intended to land at Redding.
Heather Sharp:Well, Red Bluff is the very same. The runways are the same heading and it's very easy to mistake the two. Where it's VFR, which is visual flight rules, it's clear in a million. There's not a cloud in the sky.
Heather Sharp:He's flying and he starts the descent early and I can tell that he has the wrong airport and he's going to land at Red Bluff
Stacee:With
Heather Sharp:With passengers. I thought, wow, this will be interesting, and so I'm not allowed to say anything. But I can work the radio he allows me to work the radio Red Bluff is about. I'd have to look it up, but I think it's about 15 miles or 25 miles somewhere in that range south of Redding. I tell the air traffic control, I said "so what we plan to do is we're going to descend early and do a low pass over Red Bluff and then make our way to Reading. And the captain goes what, what? And I said oh, I'm sorry, you intend to land at this airport, you're at the wrong airport. He goes all right, you can fly the next couple of days. I'm like oh well, thanks very much.
Heather Sharp:Another time and we had no flight attendants because the airplanes were so small, we didn't have flight attendants 19 people in the back we land and a woman. She was probably 60 years old. I'm saying goodbye, I'm at the bottom of the stairs, goodbye, have a good day, goodbye. And she says says, "hat is your boss's phone number? You were up there flirting with that pilot the whole time. You never came back once and gave us anything, nothing, nothing at all. And I said, oh, oh, here, let me get you his phone number and here's my employee number. And you tell him what I was doing. And I'm so, so sorry that you feel slighted
Stacee:Because
Heather Sharp:Because I was flying the airplane. I got bounced from airport to airport to airport.
Heather Sharp:I could not hold onto the base because I was at the bottom of the seniority list and I had to go to training every time because I switched airplanes. I'm like, oh my gosh. So I got bounced from San Jose to Nashville, to New York, to Nashville, to New York to Nashville.
Stacee:When
Heather Sharp:Yep, so I had to move. I can't hold New York anymore and I'm headed back down to Nashville taking my little Honda down there and I rent a room from a guy named Bailey, who is older than my dad, from the hills of Tennessee. And I come in and Bailey is sucking on his cigarette and he says "so you fly, do you? I said, yes, sir, he goes. Huh, that's funny. I don't see no feathers on you. I mean, he offered me a fried bologna sandwich on white bread with an egg cracked in the middle of it and I said, oh, thank you. No, and so I left and I went to applebee's and I'm sitting at the bar having my chili and my beer thinking my life sucks, my life sucks, said I. Said, god, my life sucks. Little did I know that God heard me and the next person that came up to my table. He says you look familiar, don't I know you? And I go no, there's no way possible that you know me. I just got here from New York. I just want to eat my chili, in peace, and he goes oh, you're from New York. I just want to eat my Chilean piece. And he goes oh, you're from New York. Are you a singer? Did you come here to get discovered? No, no, I work for American Eagle. I got based down here. Oh, you're a flight attendant. No, I'm a pilot. Spins a chair around. He sits down. He goes okay, forget the pickup line. How many hours do you have? I said I'm 3,500.
Heather Sharp:own goes I am the minority recruiter for the entire US, for the International Guard, because we cannot find females that are qualified to fly airplanes for the military. He goes what do you want? You want an F-16, f-15, you name it, I will get it for you. So I said you know, I think I'm better off for a crew airplane, a heavy airplane. So the next day we went to the Air National Guard in Nashville and they had C-130s. So the C-130 Hercules is a four-engine propeller airplane about 166,000 pounds, and I knew nothing about the military, nothing. I didn't know the difference between the guys with the stripes on their shoulders or the little birdies on their lapel.
Heather Sharp:So he takes me in to see the Vice Wing Commander. This guy had no time for a female. He goes I've got five minutes. He did not want to see a female. He goes I've got five minutes. He did not want to see a female because that slot would cost the unit a million bucks and a very valuable pilot training slot, and if a female is going to wash out, they didn't want any part of it. So he says "I've got five minutes. And he looks at me and goes because do you have any questions? C-130 is right outside the window. I said, huh, what kind of engines do you have on that thing? And he says they would be called turboprops and he go oh, I meant, are they allisons or pratt and whitney's? What you got he's like. So then an later we are crawling all over that airplane.
Heather Sharp:I had that attitude of the airplane doesn't care if I'm a girl or a guy. Then I joined the military, went to Air Force pilot training and I was the only female in the pilot training class and those guys treated me so wonderful I was not excluded. I did have to earn the guy's trust and I was not sexually harassed or harassed at all in the military, the airline a little different story. And I told them. I said you know, I don't care what jokes you say, but if it gets too much I'm going to give you the timeout sign and you have to back off. And the other rule is I better never be the subject of a joke. And they go absolutely and they were so inclusive.
Stacee:I guess I'm really surprised to hear that yeah.
Heather Sharp:For a military.
Stacee:Yeah, because you have this picture that you're just going to get ostracized and harassed as a woman going into that field. Especially, what year was this?
Heather Sharp:So this was in 1994. I graduated from pilot training in. 9510 was our class. I was one of the guys and that was a beautiful thing. Then I got hired by Northwest Airlines. My first assignment was the 747. I became an instructor. The headquarters for Northwest was in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. We lived an hour south of the airport on a little horse farm and my husband was a Midwest farmer and I was the breadwinner. He was the Mr Mom, which is a real credit to him, because in that community, to be a Mr Mom, he had to know who he was too, because everybody expected that I was home cooking the vettles and Jack was out making money. Nope, it was me. In 2008, our house leaving to go north to the airport.
Heather Sharp:A guy did not see his red light and T-boned me. The paramedics arrived to the crash and thought oh, she's dead. There's no question. Somebody reached in. "Oh, she has pulse. I had a crushed pelvis, a shattered collarbone and a mild traumatic brain injury. I was unconscious for a while.
Stacee:And
Heather Sharp:So I was 44 years old. I had a year off and I got back to flying and the roller coaster is going back up. Well, we have a horse farm and the horses chewed the bark off the trees that were in their pasture. Now we have 40 foot tall dead trees and I said to Jack I go "my gosh, we gotta get rid of those trees, because if the windstorm comes up and they fall on the fence, the horses are going to get out, go running all over the place. Jack, we gotta put those, we gotta get rid of those trees. So he brings the skid stirrer or bobcat in, he pushes the tree, a branch breaks off like 12 inches around, falls on my head, breaks over my head. I collapse
Stacee:oh my gosh
Heather Sharp:Because we're in a small town, the same paramedic gets the address and says you have got to be kidding. She arrives, sees my body laying on the ground with blood coming out of my nose and thinks "oh my gosh, she's dead. This time I take a breath. The helicopter lands in our field. The same helicopter rushes me off to Mayo Clinic and this time they rush me into brain surgery. So Jack drives down when he arrives and says I'm here to see my wife. My wife was brought in by air ambulance. I'm here to see my wife was brought in by air ambulance. They take him to a private room with dim lighting, kleenex on every table
Stacee:The bad news room?
Heather Sharp:Oh yeah, the bad news room. And he's like, "his can't be good. The doctor who's going to do the surgery comes in and says we gonna do brain surgery on your wife to remove her skull and cauterize the bleeding on the brain. She has 12 fractures in her neck and back, a collapsed lung, and he says we are gonna do everything we can, but you need to prepare yourself because she might die. He fell to his knees and started praying.
Heather Sharp:was in an induced coma for five days, intensive care for eight, 32 days in the hospital. So I was in the hospital for such a long time and Mayo knew how important my family was to my healing. Well, also part of my family and my love, my deep love for animals, coming from my dad. And we couldn't bring the horses in because they'd crap all over the place and it'd be a wreck. Jack inquired if he could bring the dog in in, our black lab, who and she turned the corner and had not seen me yet, but could smell me digging with her little claws on the tile floor to get to me and at that point I couldn't speak but I could pat on the bed and she jumped right up and I communicated to her, not speaking, that I was in such pain, oh my gosh, such pain, and I pet her. And I said "ake away my pain. And she did not to say that. I stood up and walked right out of there. But I could feel that. Just the love. Oh my gosh, I'm going to cry. Just the love of that dog. It really helped you, it really did. They cognitively wanted to know where I was.
Heather Sharp:This was probably three months post-accident and the occupational therapist said "Heather, I have a word search puzzle here. Can you circle the word apostrophe? No, okay. How about the word cat? Nope. Can you circle all the A's? I didn't even know what the A's were, heather. She had coins in her hand and dollar bills, "Heather, I would like to purchase a candy bar, so how much should I have? And she handed me the money and I looked at it Mmm, and I know they're different, I know the different sizes mean different money. Mmm, couldn't do it. Couldn't do it, could not do it. I went home, I couldn't write my name and I couldn't buy a candy bar.
Heather Sharp:I couldn't do math but I could crawl on that horse and the therapy that that horse gave me was and and it was not the silver bullet, it was more like a shotgun blast that we don't know what did. It was it the acupuncture, the cranial sacral therapy, the speech therapy, the occupational I mean, I did everything and equine therapy. That was huge, and the connection between the two of us that this was a sentient being, not an inanimate treadmill or an elliptical trainer, this was something that I could relate to and it brought back memory. It brought back fine motor skills. Being on that horse stimulated my spinal cord and that, in turn, my brain and finding my balance all the time. It was huge, huge. So six and a half years later, I got back to flying. Not a little Cessna, an A320 for Delta Airlines.
Stacee:You did you made it back!
Heather Sharp:I made it back. A total miracle. And Mayo Clinic, thankfully, is a faith-based hospital, they said "Heather, we saw the reports, we read the x-rays, we knew factually what we were dealing with. There were two things, though, we couldn't quantify faith and attitude. They said your recovery is so far off the charts that this is a miracle If there's a person with a loved one that has a TBI, a traumatic brain injury that we're used to as a society. You know, you have a broken bone. Six weeks later it's fixed. You have the flu. Five days later you're good.
Heather Sharp:The brain continues to heal. For five to ten years I thought that my progress was going to be not exponential, but it'd be steady. I'd be going boop, boop, boop. It wasn't like that at all. It was up, it was down. It was up, it was down, and when it was up I would overdo it and get fatigued. And then I'd feel like I was taking two steps backwards. I was just fatigued and then I thought you know, if I wait this out long enough, it'll turn back up again and I'll go up again. You know, just hang in there and your brain is going to keep healing.
Stacee:It's kind of like life.
Heather Sharp:It's kind of like life
Stacee:You make me think that when you say that, yeah, exactly, you know life isn't straight up like that.
Heather Sharp:After my accident, I got to be on a panel at Mayo Clinic and the audience was doctors and nurses, and because there weren't a lot of people that survived from a brain injury, the audience wanted to ask us questions about our treatment, and so one of the gals asked what causes you frustration?
Heather Sharp:And I said you know what causes me? Frustration is when I think about the past. I used to fly airplanes around the world, I used to rodeo and I miss the person I used to be, and I'm frustrated when I look at the future. I know what I want to be like, but I don't know how I make it from A to B, and that makes me frustrated that I'm not where I want to be. But if I focus on today, I had a good cup of coffee, I'm here talking to you, or I laughed at something my kids said, because we don't know if we're going to get hit by somebody in red light or a tree is going to fall on our head or whatever, and we need to appreciate today.
Stacee:What advice would you give to 20 year old girl that's just getting going in her life?
Heather Sharp:To not be afraid. Anything is possible. When I told my dad I'm going to fly that airplane, he goes all right, well, nothing's going to stand in your way, just keep after it. And when I competed, he said well, somebody's going to win first, it might as well be you. I would also say don't take things personal, because you will get so mired down in. How am I going to get that person back? Or? Oh, I feel so sorry for myself. You can't fix stupid. Move on.
Stacee:Wow, I don't know about you, but I feel like Heather just took us on a ride, and not in a comfy, extra legroom, first class kind of way, More a full throttle turbulence all the way ride with no drink service. Let's just take inventory here. Heather went from aspiring cowgirl to airline pilot, then military pilot, then instructor, survived a near fatal car crash and a freak farm accident involving a falling tree which frankly sounds like something out of a Final Destination movie only to go on and fly commercial jets again. And through it all, she kept her wit, her faith and her determination. The final chapter of Stop Acting Like a Girl is called the why Not Me Mindset, but it might as well be called the Heather Sharp Cowgirl Mindset. I want to read you just a little bit from that chapter. Now you are good enough.
Stacee:The first step in adopting the Why Not Me, me mindset is acknowledging your own worth. You are good enough and your unique qualities and perspectives are valuable. Understand that success often starts with a self-belief. When you truly believe in your capabilities, you become unstoppable. You can do this. The journey of life is paved with challenges, but the why not me mindset encourages you to embrace those challenges as opportunities for growth. Instead of questioning whether you can do it, ask yourself why you can't.
Stacee:People are just people, Regardless of titles and positions. Everyone started somewhere. When you stop putting others on pedestals and start approaching them as equals, you'll be amazed what opens up. People relate to authenticity, and authenticity breeds connection. It's not about being the smartest. Success isn't about having the highest IQ in the room. What really matters is who else cares as much as you do. Passion, persistence and purpose are often more powerful than pedigree. You've got what it takes the smarts, the creativity, the resilience. It's already in you. Now is the time to tap in and go for it. That's straight from the last chapter of my book. Stop Acting Like a Girl. The why not me mindset is what gets you in the cockpit when only 1% of the pilots are women. It's what lets you sass back to the guy who says there's an empty kitchen because you're in the plane. It's what pushes you to crawl literally crawl back from a traumatic brain injury and say I'm not done yet and I want that for you, whoever you are, wherever you're.
Stacee:Listening from your story might not look like Heather's, but I bet you've been going through something and I know there's something big, scary and meaningful you want to go after. It's about believing in yourself enough to take the next step, even when it's uphill, sideways or on horseback. Maybe it's starting a new career, Maybe it's finally leaving the one that's draining you. Maybe it's writing a book, running a marathon or getting back on the horse. And I want you to hear me say this you capable, you are worthy, you can do this. You don't need a sign from the universe or a perfect plan. You just need one question why not me? Because you're just as deserving of success, happiness and second chances as anyone else. And Heather, if you're listening, thank you for reminding us that even when life bucks you off hard, you dust yourself off, adjust your hat and ride on.
Stacee:If you want more laugh out loud, family stories and proof that Heather Sharp's life really is never dull, go grab her book. It's called Never Dull for a Reason. You'll find it on Amazon or at heathersharpcom. Trust me, it's a ride. Also, I've got a little bonus for you this week. I've made these fun little Why Not Me? Stickers, and I'd love to send you one. Just head over to our Instagram Everyday Wonder Women, find the post for this episode and drop a comment. That's it, and I'll pop one in the mail for you, Because who doesn't need a little reminder that you can go for it? Well, okay, let's meet again next week, as we keep the spotlight shining on the fierce, fearless, everyday wonder women of the military All month long for May.