Laura Savino
Laura Savino on the Importance of STEM Awareness
Laura Savino
Keynote Speaker
Airline Pilot; Author, JET BOSS; Purdue University Aviation Industry Advisory Board; STEM educator
International airline pilot, aviation pioneer, award-winning author, and disruptor of the status quo, Captain Laura Savino delivers powerful insights on judgment under pressure and the confidence to embrace calculated risks from 38,000 feet… to the biggest challenges in life.
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As one of the few female airline captains in a male-dominated industry, Captain Laura Savino mastered high-stakes decision making at 38,000 feet, where precision and composure are non-negotiable.
Having never met a pilot in her life, Savino secretly got a job at a local airport as a teenager and worked her way through flying lessons.
She charted her own course from flight instructor and aircraft re-possessor to international airline captain at United Airlines. After years of dangerous flying to finally achieve her ultimate aviation goal: taking a seat in the cockpit of the B747 for United Airlines – Savino’s life came to a sudden halt when she broke her neck and lost everything from a hospital bed. Four surgeries later, she disproved her neurosurgeon’s chilling prognosis. Creating her own second chance and once again demonstrating the ultimate strength of never giving up, she worked her way back to the cockpit and achieved her ultimate dream all over again. Flying every aircraft from the Boeing 777 to the Airbus 320, Captain Savino has forged a unique perspective on leadership, risk-taking, and resilience.
Featured in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museums, her book JET BOSS offers not only a fascinating female perspective from inside the cockpit, but it’s a call to action for anyone who has ever been told they don’t belong. With gripping storytelling and raw honesty, Captain Savino takes readers into the hidden world of airline pilots and shares the blueprint for courage, proving that with grit and a refusal to back down, you can navigate your own journey, even in the most unforgiving skies.
With a background in Applied Science and Aviation Technology from Purdue University, she blends technical mastery with real-world wisdom, turning pressure into power. As a mentor and advocate, she is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of women in STEM, proving that intelligence, boldness, and determination can shatter any ceiling.
Captain Savino can command a room like she commands a jetliner. Her energy ignites peak performance and inspires each individual to believe they can break barriers and achieve greatness in ways they never thought possible.
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Laura Savino
Captain Savino interview Oshkosh Airshow
Laura Savino
Laura Savino on the Importance of STEM Awareness
Laura Savino’s Speech Topics
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Dreams Don’t Work Unless You Do
Laura Savino was a middle-child, in a middle-class family, from the middle of New Jersey. By the age of twenty-five she was flying around the world in a Boeing 747 as a pilot for United Airlines.
Hear her story: the setbacks, the rejection, and the long road it took to keep showing up to buck the status quo. From being an underestimated outsider to being in command of one of the most complex machines on Earth, Captain Savino lays out the blueprint for defying expectations. But her journey isn’t just about boundaries broken. After a catastrophic injury left her with a broken neck and grounded dreams, she fought her way back to the cockpit for a second chance, defying near-impossible odds after everything fell apart.
In this inspiring and unfiltered talk, she reminds us that lasting success isn’t about luck — it’s built on grit, resilience, and unwavering self-belief. No matter your starting point or the turbulence along the way, you’re capable of far more than you think.
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Beyond the Cockpit with Human Lessons from the Deadliest Crash in Aviation History
In 1977, two fully loaded B747s collided in Tenerife in the world’s deadliest air disaster, with 583 fatalities. Years later, as a pilot with United Airlines, Laura Savino piloted the B747 with the surviving Pan Am pilot from this crash, Captain Robert Bragg. Privileged to hear intimate details regarding what the pilots were actually thinking and doing, Captain Savino shares Captain Bragg’s insights on what really happened.
The cost of silence and assumption is still high today in offices, hospitals, boardrooms, and relationships. This talk brings the powerful lessons of the Tenerife disaster directly to you, with insight those pilots didn’t have.
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This Is Your Captain Speaking… and No, That’s Not a Punchline
Captain Laura Savino is not here to serve coffee, she is here to deliver something stronger: perspective, honesty, and a tribute to the women who flew before her.
Captain Savino invites you onto the flight deck for a candid and often comical journey through the skies of gender expectations. From being mistaken for the flight attendant while seated in her captain’s seat, to tucking away sun visors designed for someone a full foot taller, to filling out the “females only” section on pilot applications— she reveals the outdated assumptions and challenges still buffeting women at 38,000 feet.
But this talk goes beyond one woman’s story. It honors the legacy of fearless trailblazers before her, looking back in time to when the media blamed every accident on “biological inferiority” – even when the wing literally fell off the plane as the cause. Captain Savino makes one thing clear: We’ve come far, but the ceiling isn’t glass… it’s steel and pressurized. Buckle up. It’s going to be an enlightening ride.
Works by Laura Savino
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