When daughter Nicole came home and announced her plans to follow a career in aviation maintenance, it’s accurate to say Mom and Dad Johnson were not all that thrilled.

"My mother said ‘No way!’" the 27-year-old Nicole recalled. "She said I was going to go to college and get an academic degree and that was that."

So, off the dutiful daughter went to Purdue in 1994, still thinking about what she had learned while visiting some technical schools in her native Lexington, Kentucky.

"I don’t know what it is about me, but I have always loved tools," Nicole said, adding that she used to just sit and watch repair people who came to the house and think their tools were neat.

"I was always taking things apart to see what made them work, thinking that it was pretty cool to be able to not only take something apart, but to be able to put it back together again and make it work," she said. "I really don’t know where that came from."

But to appease the parents, Nicole marched through the ivory towers of Purdue on the way to an engineering degree. It didn’t take her long to figure out that scribbling on drawings and figuring out designs on paper just wasn’t for her.

"I took this test at Purdue that said I should be a pilot and I didn’t even know that Purdue had a flying program at the time," she said. "So, I went over to check it out, but it was really expensive to learn to fly."

Deciding she couldn’t afford to learn to fly, Johnson asked what else they had. School officials pointed her to the maintenance program. Signing up for the program was a no-brainer, Nicole said, much easier than convincing her parents she was serious and getting them to accept her decision.

"It turned out okay once they saw it was what I really wanted to do," she said.

Johnson said that once she was in the program things began to come together pretty easily, despite the fact that she was one of only a few women in the program.

"That wasn’t too bad," Nicole grinned about the girls-to-guys ratio, "We all got along and it was just a whole lot of fun."

After four years, Johnson earned a degree in aviation technology and, with it, the chance to put her new-found skills to work. An offer from Cincinnati, Ohio-based Executive Jet Management soon followed, and Johnson had found a home.

"One of the best things about this job is taking this object–the airplane–that is a machine with five or six major systems in it, something that’s not really worth a lot when it’s broken, and fixing it so it can take off again and go about what it’s meant to do," she said. "It’s rewarding to be able to do that. There’s satisfaction in being able to apply those skills."

Johnson said another advantage of the job is that every day is different.

"Nothing stays the same in this business," she said. "With all the different airplanes that come in here, there’s always something different to work on–different planes, different systems, different problems that all require different fixes. You never get bored."

In the 1986 blockbuster, "Top Gun," a song belts out the lyrics about "playing with the boys." Johnson said she doesn’t mind. She said she doesn’t understand why there aren’t more women technicians, noting that her male co-workers have been extremely supportive.

"Oh, believe me, they pulled some things when I first came here, just to see if I could take it," she laughed. "I just took it in stride, since a lot of it was pretty much good-natured, ‘new girl’ kind of things."

"But I’ll say this much," she added. "You’ve really got to be able to talk the [stuff] with the boys when it gets right down to it, because that’s the only way you’re going to make a space for yourself."

So competent did Johnson prove herself that her supervisors in short order promoted her to program manager. That was a step up, but it took her a bit of a distance away from actually turning wrenches.

"I kind of miss that on a daily basis, but I spend enough time on the floor keeping my hands in things so I keep my skills sharp," Johnson said. "Being the only girl here hasn’t been a problem, because the people here are just so great. It’s a great place to work."

As to her future, Johnson’s about as focused on that as she was on getting a toolbox she could call her own.

"Oh, I’m staying right here at Executive Jet," she said. "I like it here, I believe I have a future here, the opportunities are endless–I mean, I get to work on jets! The people treat me great and I fit in. What else could you ask for?"–Bob Howie