Congratulations to Andrew Schermerhorn, EAA 1467594, former membership intern with EAA, as he recently earned his private pilot certificate!
Andrew, a student at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois, is from the Neenah, Wisconsin, area, so he grew up going to AirVenture with his family. Andrew did not realize how big of a deal AirVenture truly was as a kid. His thought of it was just an air show that happens every summer. Growing up, Andrew was involved with KidVenture and saw the Blue Angels when they performed in Oshkosh. This made him fall in love with all aspects of aviation. When approaching the end of high school, Andrew chose to attend Kaneisha College in Buffalo, New York, for a D1 offer to play lacrosse, pursuing a business degree. Later in his college career, he decided business was not for him and changed his major to biology. After traveling across the country with the lacrosse team, he decided biology was not for him. So, he chose to major in psychology. As the season ended, Andrew realized there might be another adventure around the horizon.
He realized he’d always been interested in aviation and put it aside after high school to try out athletics in college. After hearing stories from people around him involved with aviation, he decided he needed to try and pursue it — and to see if aviation would turn out to be his most incredible adventure. Andrew went looking for experience in his area, so he ended up interning at EAA, working in membership services. He learned a lot by answering questions from members he would speak to in his position. After working with EAA and seeing what the world of aviation could give him, he decided to stay with it and transfer to Lewis University.
“I transferred to Lewis and got the discovery flight over the summer my mom signed me up for. Lewis became a good combination where I could pursue aviation and still play lacrosse,” Andrew said, “So I got to Lewis, and I started working on my private pilot’s license. I have stayed in touch with some people at EAA.”
Throughout his journey of changing majors and traveling all over for lacrosse, Andrew finally found his passion. On June 7, he earned his private pilot certificate. Andrew plans on working on his instrument rating for the rest of the summer, then working on his commercial rating throughout the next school year. He hopes to be working on his CFI next summer to try and get through his ratings. After all that, he is looking into joining the military and eventually becoming an airline pilot to travel the world. Throughout all this, Andrew has had fantastic support from his family and friends, especially his friends from EAA.
“EAA is great people who go out of their way to help you,” Andrew said, “It’s a really good group of people. Everybody is very passionate about aviation and very welcoming. I think EAA does a great job to try to support industry growth, like Young Eagles, WomenVenture, and the inclusive workspace, and they just try to help people as best they can.”