By Leonard Serratore | The Adventure of Lenny and Scotty

When most people hear the word “aviation,” they picture a pilot. Crisp uniform, four stripes on the shoulder, walking purposefully through an airport terminal with a rolling bag and the quiet confidence of someone who spends their workday above the clouds.

And yes, being a pilot is one of the most exciting careers in the world. But here’s something I learned over 37 years working inside the aviation industry: the pilot is just one person in an enormous, intricate, endlessly fascinating ecosystem. For every person in a cockpit, there are dozens of others who make the flight possible, on the ground, in the tower, in hangars and offices, and control centers and cargo facilities scattered across airports large and small.

I’ve spent my entire professional life in that ecosystem. I’ve worked at Westchester County Airport, at Broward County’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, and at Palm Beach International. I’ve seen the full breadth of what aviation careers look like, not from the outside, but from the inside. And I wrote The Adventure of Lenny and Scotty partly because I wanted young readers to understand that if you love the sky, there are more ways to build a life around it than you might imagine.

Let’s explore some of them.

Airport Management and Operations

This is the world I spent my career in, so I’ll start here.

Airport management is the backbone of commercial aviation. Airports are small cities, or large ones, in some cases, with every corresponding complexity: infrastructure, security, environmental compliance, construction, tenant relations, public safety, noise abatement, emergency planning, and the relentless logistics of making sure thousands of aircraft movements happen safely every day.

Airport directors and managers work with airlines, the FAA, TSA, customs and border protection, environmental agencies, and local governments. They plan runway expansions and terminal renovations. They manage contracts with fuel suppliers, ground handlers, and concessionaires. They handle crises, weather events, security incidents, and equipment failures, with the calm focus that comes from years of preparation.

A degree in aviation management, business, or public administration is a common entry point. So is military aviation experience. The field rewards people who are organized, decisive, and genuinely fascinated by the complexity of how airports function.

I found it endlessly interesting for 37 years. I still do.

Air Traffic Control

Air traffic controllers are the invisible architects of safe flight. Every aircraft you have ever been on — every takeoff, every landing, every moment of cruise altitude- was monitored and managed by a controller somewhere along the route.

The FAA employs thousands of air traffic controllers across the country, at airports (terminal facilities) and at en-route centers that manage aircraft between airports. It’s a high-stakes, high-skill career that requires exceptional focus, spatial reasoning, and the ability to make rapid, accurate decisions under pressure.

Controllers go through rigorous selection processes and training at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. The work is intellectually demanding, the pay is strong, and the sense of responsibility, knowing that your attention and expertise help keep hundreds of people safe every day, is profound.

For young people who love aviation but aren’t sure about the pilot path, air traffic control is one of the most direct and high-impact careers in the industry.

Aviation Maintenance and Engineering

Every time a commercial aircraft pushes back from the gate, it has been inspected, maintained, and certified airworthy by a team of aviation maintenance technicians (AMTs), also called A&P mechanics (for Airframe and Powerplant).

These are the professionals who keep the fleet flying. They perform scheduled maintenance inspections, repair structural damage, troubleshoot system failures, and sign off on aircraft as safe before they carry passengers. Their work is governed by strict FAA regulations, and their signatures carry real legal weight. An aircraft doesn’t fly without their approval.

Aviation maintenance is a skilled trade with strong demand and excellent career prospects. Training programs are available at community colleges, technical schools, and aviation-specific institutions. The path to an A&P certificate involves significant hands-on training and written exams, and like pilot certification, it reflects the aviation industry’s deep commitment to safety and competence.

For young people who love working with their hands, solving mechanical puzzles, and being part of something that literally keeps things in the air, aviation maintenance is a calling.

Aerospace Engineering and Design

If you have ever wondered who designs the aircraft in the first place, the engineers behind the wing shapes, the engine configurations, the avionics systems, the materials science of modern aircraft construction, that’s aerospace engineering.

Aerospace engineers work at manufacturers like Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, and Cessna. They work at NASA and the Department of Defense. They work at startups pushing the frontier of electric aviation, urban air mobility, and unmanned systems. They apply the principles of aerodynamics, thermodynamics, structural mechanics, and electronics to solve some of the most challenging design problems in any field.

A bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, or closely related fields like mechanical engineering or electrical engineering, is the standard entry point. Many aerospace engineers go on to graduate school, specializing in propulsion, structures, guidance systems, or computational fluid dynamics.

The aircraft that Scotty sketches in every notebook in the book? A future aerospace engineer might look at those sketches and see not just dreams but blueprints.

Aviation Medicine

This is one of the lesser-known corners of aviation, but it’s a genuinely fascinating specialty. Aviation medicine, also called aerospace medicine, deals with the physiological and psychological challenges of flight: hypoxia (reduced oxygen at altitude), spatial disorientation, fatigue management, the effects of G-forces on the human body, and the long-term health of pilots and crews.

Aviation medical examiners (AMEs) are doctors certified by the FAA to conduct the medical exams required for pilot certification. Flight surgeons in military aviation work with pilots to ensure peak performance and assess fitness for duty. Researchers in aerospace medicine develop protocols to keep crews healthy on long-duration spaceflight, and their work increasingly touches commercial aviation as well.

For young people interested in both medicine and aviation, this specialty is a remarkable path, one that sits at the intersection of human biology and flight.

Aviation Education and Outreach

Some of the most impactful people in aviation never leave the ground at all, because they’re spending their energy making sure the next generation finds its way to the sky.

Flight instructors, ground school educators, aviation program directors at high schools and colleges, writers and communicators who bring the story of aviation to new audiences, these professionals are as important to the future of the industry as any pilot or engineer. Aviation faces a properly documented shortage of pilots and maintenance technicians, and the people who inspire young students to consider aviation careers are doing some of the most important work in the field.

That’s part of why I wrote The Adventure of Lenny and Scotty. I wanted to put a book in the hands of a child who maybe has not thought about aviation till now, and show them that the sky isn’t just for people who grew up near airports or had parents who flew. It’s for anyone who looks up and feels that pull.

The Common Thread

What unites all of these careers, from airport director to aerospace engineer, from air traffic controller to aviation medical examiner, is a shared commitment to something bigger than any one role.

Aviation, at its best, is about moving people safely and efficiently through the world. Every person in the industry, in every role, contributes to that mission. And every person in the industry, if you ask them how they got here, will eventually tell you a story about the first time they looked up at a plane and felt something they couldn’t quite name.

That feeling is the beginning of everything.

Beyond the cockpit, the sky is waiting.