Susan C. Friedenberg [Guest Author]

Susan C. Friedenberg started her aviation career in 1970. She spent the first 15 years of her aviation career flying for American Airlines and then Capitol Air. She has been a corporate flight attendant for the last 27 years, flying both as a contract flight attendant with a coast-to-coast clientele list and as a full-time flight attendant for the Coca-Cola Company, DuPont Aviation, and American Standard Companies. In 1999 Susan started her own training company called "The Corporate Flight Attendant Training Program," teaching her training course in Long Beach, California and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She also conducts in-house training classes including food safety awareness courses for clients, globally and domestically. Susan does consulting within the business aviation industry/community and also does contract flying. She is committed to raising the standards within business aviation where it pertains to the third crew member. She has been a proactive advocate for Corporate Aviation Flight Attendants and lack of FAA regulations where it is applicable to the third crew member on private aircraft. Her professional mission in life is to have the United States Congress implement and pass legislation requiring professional flight attendants on all business aircraft of a specific weight level and seating capacity, in addition to all business flight attendants being required to have corporate-aircraft-specific emergency training and attend yearly recurrent training. Susan has been an active sitting member on the NBAA Flight Attendant Committee in Washington, DC for 17 years. She held the position of Scholarship Chairperson for the Flight Attendant Committee for two years. In that time, she raised $44,650 in educational scholarships for the corporate flight attendant. She served as the NBAA Flight Attendant Committee Vice Chairperson for one year and represented Contract Flight Attendants throughout the United States on this committee for five years. She now serves on this committee as an esteemed advisory consultant. Susan was awarded volunteer of the year for 2011 by Women In Corporate Aviation for raising $25,000 in scholarship awards. Susan is highly respected and considered an expert in business aviation. She speaks at various conferences globally on many topics reflective of the professional role of the business aviation flight attendant. Susan can be contacted through her Company Web site, via LinkedIn, or by e-mail. This guest author’s views are entirely her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Universal Weather and Aviation, Inc.