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“I got interested in air traffic controlling because of my love for aviation…Flying was complete happiness to me.” —Maxine Crookston (Schmidt), 2015 Maxine Crookston (1915–2016) was known as “The Voice of San Francisco Airport” from the late 1940s through the 1950s. Born in Salt Lake City, Crookston dreamed of flying as a child and recalled jumping as far as possible from her parents’ porch while flapping her arms as wings. Crookston earned a B.A. at the University of Utah, an M.A. at Stanford, and taught high school English and Latin. However, her life's ambition was to fly as a commercial pilot, and Crookston acquired her private and commercial pilot's licenses with an instrument rating. During the Second World War, she served with the Civil Air Patrol as a survey pilot and with the Army Air Corps as a flight instructor. Excluded from civilian work as an airline pilot due to her gender, Crookston switched gears and was hired by the Civil Aeronautics Authority in 1942 as an air traffic controller in Salt Lake City. She transferred to San Francisco in 1946 and became the first female air traffic control watch supervisor in the country. Crookston was also a popular subject for interviews by Bay Area newspapers, radio programs, and television stations. After she married fellow pilot (and later, air traffic controller) Eugene Schmidt in 1958, the couple settled in Southern California. Learn more about Maxine Crookston Schmidt in our exhibition, “Mills Field and the San Francisco Airport” on display in the SkyTerrace and online at: https://t.co/aL3GtInqlj The SkyTerrace is located pre-security in Terminal 2 and is open from Friday to Monday from 10am to 6pm.
This image was posted on December 13, 2022.