Solar soaring: Mt. Lebanon graduate, 23, helps make aviation history
Paige Kassalen with Solar Impulse 2 in the background
Paige Kassalen works on the Solar Impulse 2 catching crew in Abu Dhabi.
Paige Kassalen works on the Solar Impulse 2 catching crew in Abu Dhabi.
Paige Kassalen with Solar Impulse 2
As Paige Kassalen piled in with a crew to go to dinner on the first day after arriving in Hawaii, it didn’t take her long to realize she was the minority.
Greeted mostly with “Bonjour!” and the occasional “Grüezi,” the immediacy of stepping out of her comfort zone was at the forefront, again.
It was an issue in her not-so-distant past, when questions were posed to her and her classmates at Mt. Lebanon High School. Kassalen, now 23, didn’t raise her hand for the simple fear of being wrong.
“It’s something a lot of people face, because you are really putting yourself out there,” she said. “It was hurting me because I love to try and get out of my comfort zone, but I was so afraid of failing.”
Failing was not an option for Kassalen, as five months, six states, three countries and a ride on a camel’s back around Egyptian pyramids later, she was about to become part of history in the early morning of July 26 at Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi.
She was on the catching crew of Solar Impulse 2, the first zero-fuel aircraft to circle the globe, with the responsibility of steering the tail of the 236-foot wide, 5,000 pound solar-powered plane as it taxis onto the runway and catching the wing when it touches down.
“When the plane landed, I was in such a strange mood,” Kassalen recalled. “It’s one of those things where you can’t even digest what has been accomplished. It was such a foreign feeling of completing history.”
Kassalen, who joined the excursion with 60 other individuals, was not only the lone American woman on the international team, she was the youngest person.
After graduating from Mt. Lebanon in 2011, she wanted to break the mold of what many engineers – electrical engineers, specifically – look like, particularly in this country. A U.S. Department of Labor study in 2014 showed that only 8.3 percent of electrical and electronic engineers are women. No engineering field at the time exceeded more than 18 percent females.
Those were just numbers in the way of a passion that Kassalen developed in her childhood.
“Growing up, I always loved to be creative and put those skills to use to solve problems,” she said. “I went to a bunch of camps and programs just to see if (engineering) is what I was really interested in. I realized that engineering is being creative, problem solving and using those skills to innovate.”
The disparity between men and women in the engineering field was more pronounced for Kassalen when she walked into classes at Whittemore Hall on the campus of Virginia Tech.
Four years later, she joined only eight women among about 160 graduates to earn a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. “I never looked at it as a difficult thing,” said Kassalen. “I loved the fact that I could use being different in the field as an advantage. I feel that my family has been an amazing support system. There are no limitations. If people don’t have that support system, they start to think, ‘Why am I here?'”
A little over a year later, after accepting a position with Covestro LLC, Kassalen traded her black graduation gown for a fluorescent airport safety vest while joining seven other people from around the world to guide one of the most important flight technology missions ever.
That opportunity was made possible after a vice president of the company acknowledged her potential and advocated for her to apply for a position on the Solar Impulse mission.
“I graduated from college and thought I would be just doing the typical things an engineer does,” said Kassalen. “I have this opportunity that I didn’t think was possible. I’m taking this as an opportunity to always challenge myself. I know personally that I can’t let this be the highlight of my life. I’m definitely going to be ambitious to top this experience. I don’t want to just let myself say I peaked when I was 23.”
The only English-speaking person throughout the first month-and-a-half of her journey, she also was responsible for assembling electric bicycles that top 40 mph and making sure that all the batteries and flammables needed for the trip were stored, labeled and documented properly.
With the welfare of the plane literally in her hands, those split-second decisions are determined by Kassalen’s choice to not fear being wrong, a choice that resonates back to one class that didn’t cause her angst throughout her high school years: French.