Kristine Yaroschuk, a Maryland State Police (MSP) helicopter pilot, will be the featured speaker at the Frederick Community College Moving Mountains speaker series on Wednesday, Jan. 11, from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.
The series features inspiring professionals who share their life experiences and encourage teens and young adults to set the bar high in all areas of their lives.
The sessions are free and open to the public and will take place in the JBK Theater, located inside the Visual & Performing Arts Center on campus.
Yaroschuk has been a civilian pilot with MSP for the last nine years, and was the only female pilot until last year. Based at Trooper 3 in Frederick, Yaroschuk flies medics to a variety of different scenes and situations. She gets dispatched to help trauma victims, assist in search and rescue operations, perform disaster assessment, collect evidence, and support the MSP in other ways.
Prior to her role with the MSP, she was a pilot for Era Group Inc. in the Gulf of Mexico, where she flew employees to and from oil platforms and rigs.
Yaroschuk didn’t know she wanted to become a pilot until her early 30s. She had held numerous other jobs including as a dog trainer, coffee shop manager, caterer, waiter, and facilitator for organizational development workshops. Yaroschuk credits an experience she had while living in Los Angeles with giving her the motivation to make a career change. After taking up paragliding, she witnessed a handful of accidents that resulted in serious injuries. During one accident, she had to call 911 from a mountain to help an injured paraglider.
“As I was providing ground support to the injured person, I saw the helicopter approach, felt the air from the blades, and watched as the EMT was lowered down,” Yaroschuk said. “That’s when I realized what I was supposed to do in life.”
After that experience, Yaroschuk immediately started researching jobs and training opportunities for pilots and quickly changed the course of her professional life. Her favorite aspect of her career now is the ability to help people.
In addition to Yaroschuk, upcoming speakers include:
• February 15 - Jason Lee, business owner and community leader
• March 21 - Amelia Draper, NBC4-Washington Meteorologist
• April 12 - Mia Russell, financial expert and educator with University of Maryland Extension
• May 17 - Maurice Arenas, studio musician, performer, and TrueFire artist.
For more information about the series, contact
Mike Pritchard at 301.846.2417.
Photo credit: Sass Magazine / Jessica Patterson Photography
Frederick Community College makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities for College-sponsored events and programs. If you have accommodation needs, please call 301.846.2408. To request a sign language interpreter, please call 240.629.7819 or 301.846.2408 (Voice) or email interpreting. Sign language interpreters will not be automatically provided for College-sponsored events without a request for services. To guarantee accommodations, requests must be made at least five workdays in advance of a scheduled event.