Recently, the daughter of U.S. Navy Captain Sarah Abbott ’99 drew her a picture. “It was like, ‘What mom used to do,’ and it’s me flying a jet aircraft, and then it’s, ‘What mom does now,’ and it’s me typing at the computer,” she says, laughing. Abbott, currently a program manager for Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Md., is a 2003 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a 2005 graduate of Stanford University, where she earned a master’s in aeronautics and astronautics. She became a naval aviator in 2007 and was the first woman in her F/A-18 squadron before she became a test pilot. She’s logged almost 2,000 hours in 31 different aircraft, flown in multiple combat operations, and earned three Meritorious Service Medals.

“While I was the first woman aviator in the squadron—the first woman running around in a flight suit—there were plenty of women working on the flight line and in the hangar,” she says. “So aviation squadrons, we do our own maintenance, and there’s 250 people in that squadron, and a couple hundred of them are out there working on jets every day. There were many women. They had just never seen a woman flying the plane.”

The day of Abbott’s first flight, she noticed something—a lot of women watching. “They had organized their schedule so they could launch me,” she says. “I was happy to be able to represent. Some of them came to talk to me like, ‘I can be a pilot, too?’ Yes, you can be a pilot. You should see yourself in this role.”

She was drawn to aviation because she liked “hard, cool, fast stuff”—although having a grandmother who served in World War II inspired her, too. “At a certain point, you realize you like friction experiences and you’re activated through challenges, and I’ve leaned into that,” Abbott says. “There’s a part of me where if it’s not hard, it is just not the right thing for me.”

Her most exhilarating experience? “Launching off an aircraft carrier,” she says. “I did that over and over and over again, but it is still the best feeling in the world, especially on a beautiful sunny day. Just imagine you’re somewhere around the middle of the Pacific. You get to launch off the front of this floating island aircraft-carrier home and go out and bend around a really capable combat aircraft. That’s the fun part. The rewarding part is directly supporting troops in combat.”

While she misses the visceral thrill of flying, Abbott acknowledges the trade-offs. “Flying is awesome. Flights are what we live for,” she says. “I think what people don’t realize is you spend hours ahead of that flight getting ready for it. You spend hours afterwards debriefing. Some missions are six to eight hours in an ejection seat. There’s a lot of physical and life things that are better now. I get to see my kids at night, be here for my family, not to mention my back and neck feel great from not sitting in that seat.”

As a program manager, she’s responsible for developing, acquiring, and sustaining weapons specific to carrier-based use on naval aircraft. Instead of skies, she now spends her days navigating budgets, contracts, and stakeholder viewpoints, but the work is far from mundane. “I love it,” she says. “But you have to love getting in the scrum with a bunch of people with different opinions and stakeholder viewpoints.” From contracts teams to financial overseers, test teams to vendors, and fleet stakeholders to war fighters, Abbott helps orchestrate a symphony of competing interests.

She feels her pull to service began at St. Andrew’s. “St. Andrew’s lays a foundation for its students to be drawn to a life of service,” she says. “I specifically wound up at the Naval Academy because of St. Andrew’s. I never was super profit-motivated, to be honest. I find it really powerful to be serving our war fighters out there, supporting the fleet, and trying to make the right things happen for U.S. national security interests. I am motivated to serve my country, to serve the sailors out there who are deployed every day, and I’ve stayed over and over because of that.”

As a mother of two children, Abbott finds herself often thinking about St. Andrew’s through the lens of a parent. “I’m thankful that St. Andrew’s is there and thriving as a place, like [Head of School] Joy [McGrath ’92] says, where my kids could go and still be kids,” she says. “It’s wonderful to think about one day possibly sharing that experience with them. To continue to be a part of this community, this family, has been very rewarding for me.”

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Spring issue of St. Andrew’s Magazine in a story called “Making Their Mark: A Sampling of St. Andrew’s Women who have Transformed their Spaces.” If you enjoyed the story above, read its “sister” stories here.