Aviation Day 2025

By Denecia Marshall, Industry Employment Specialist, M.A., Ed.M

The April 10, 2025, Aviation Day event included speaker Amar Singh, Senior Manager, Airside from JFKIAT. He attended the aviation event with Robert Bergman, Senior Manager of Operations at JFKIAT and Algendra Dharamdatt, our graduate student and Operations Supervisor at JFKIAT, who tabled for the event . 

 Hannah Shaw, Human Resource Manager at Ferrovial, and Mobena Mohamed, Human Resource Coordinator at The New Terminal One spoke about jobs and internships. The company is slated to be the largest terminal at JFK and 30% of their jobs will be entry-level.  Hilda Flores, Sales Manager at DoubleTree by Hilton, offered her support and information to students about jobs.  Natasha Turner, Project Manager and Edferson Gernier, Intern for PANYNJ Redevelopment, both alumni from York College’s Aviation Management program, spoke and are currently filling an internship role at the redevelopment site at PANYNJ. 

Additional speakers included, Harriet Lester, Senior Advisor to Federal Aviation Administration, who encouraged our students to apply for FAA jobs and not to give up in the process of applying, especially for the ATC position.  Moriah Graham of PSA Airlines spoke about her role as a pilot.   Other speakers included Marc Walker, Human Resource Partner at Swissport, who has consistently hired our students; Sasha-Lee Dawes, Finance and Administration Manager at Avport-Republic Airport; Brian Worthington, Pilot, Co-Founder & President of New York Metro Black Pilots Association; Beverly Holder, CEO and Drone Pilot of B.Holder Photo, Inc., and Meagan Hobson, CEO of Women Rock Wings, who recently launched her magazine.

We thank all the speakers who imparted diverse career paths and information to the 55 students in attendance.   After the speaking engagements, students had an opportunity to go to the table, ask questions about potential jobs and internships.  There were several pictures to commemorate the event taken by Silva Shadow Photography, the fiancé of our graduate student, LaQuana Chappelle. LaQuana also created York College Aviation patches for the club officers, which they wore proudly. 

Dessa Weekes, President of Cardinal Aviators, purchased and worked to assemble the decorations that added to the photos commemorating the event. The Cardinal Aviators Officers Dominique Quarles, Vice President, and Ashley Maharjan, Secretary. 

Club team members who also contributed, spent many hours setting up the decorations for the event, were Wilhelmina Reynoso, Miryam Rojas Toxtle, Teviann Warren, Hangwo (Grace) Yip, Christion Anderson and York graduate student, LaQuana Chappelle. This was truly a team effort and I am very proud of them all.

I was very proud of the way students networked with the speakers and employers. 

Cardinal Aviators – Thank you for your hard work!!