FAIRMONT, W.Va. (WV News) — Cynthia Rodina, an aviation maintenance instructor at Pierpont Community & Technical College, continues to pass along her love and passion for her field by preparing the next generation of students for rewarding careers.
Rodina has been sharing her skills and expertise with students at Pierpont for the past several years and, before that, enjoyed a rewarding 17-year career with Delta Airlines, servicing, repairing and, in exciting cases, taxiing their aircraft.
The person who inspired her to become involved in the field was her father, she said.
“He worked for an airline, U.S. Air, as a mechanic, so it was kind of just around me my whole life. We had flight benefits. We had parties in his hangar, and as I got older, he was wanting me to figure out what I wanted to do with my life,” she said.
One evening, Rodina said she was working on her car in the garage, came up for dinner and told her dad she wanted to be a mechanic.
“He said, ‘Well, if you want to be a mechanic, you want to work on airplanes.’ So I went and toured the Pittsburgh Institution of Aeronautics, which is where he went to school also, and I fell in love, signed up and have been in it ever since,” she said.
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