Tammie Jo Shults to Deliver the Fall 2024 Michael Lester Wendt Character Lecture

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Captain Tammie Jo Shults, who safely landed Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 after it experienced an engine failure, will deliver the Fall 2024 Michael Lester Wendt Character Lecture at 7:00 p.m. Monday, October 7, 2024, in John and Alice Butler Hall, Heritage Center, University of Dubuque. The lecture, titled "Habits, Hope, and Heroes," is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.

Shults demonstrated perseverance and grit on her path to becoming a military pilot. As a child she was inspired to pursue aviation, but the lack of support for women in the industry delayed her entrance into the profession. After her application to the Air Force was turned down, she persisted. She realized her goals with the U.S. Navy, earning her pilot's wings in the T-34 and eventually serving as an instructor, then as an aggressor pilot for naval aviators during Operation Desert Storm. She became one of the first female F/A-18 Hornet pilots and promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve.

After retiring from active duty, Shults' extensive training for high-pressure situations came to her aid as a commercial pilot for Southwest Airlines when an engine on a Boeing 737 exploded at high altitude on April 17, 2018, causing multiple system failures and rapid depressurization. Shults remained calm and composed and made a successful emergency landing in Philadelphia, saving 148 passengers and crew. Her memoir, Nerves of Steel, became a national best-selling book.

Now retired, Shults continues to pursue her passion for aviation as a volunteer pilot and through her service on the Women in Aviation Advisory Board to the Federal Aviation Administration, Pearl Harbor Aviation Board, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation Board. She has received a variety of awards and was recently inducted into the International Aviation Hall of Fame.

The lecture is presented by UD's Wendt Character Initiative as part of its mission to promote a campus culture of excellent moral character and purposeful lives. Shults' journey of perseverance represents the core virtues of character that the Wendt Character Initiative seeks to promote. Guest lecturers in the fall and spring speak from lives of purpose, linking issues of the day to character virtues such as integrity, justice, and compassion.

For more information, please contact the Wendt Character Initiative at 563.589.3440 or [email protected].