Amy Laboda

Flying is in the Laboda family, and Amy took up the sport at 15 years of age. She soloed at 16 and earned her private pilot certificate two days after her seventeenth birthday. She continued flying while earning a Liberal Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York; by the time she graduated she was an instrument-rated commercial pilot and before the year was out she had earned her instructor's rating.

A short career in the United States Peace Corps as a health educator is all that has interrupted her flying career since then. Amy has taught students how to fly in California, Texas, New York and Florida. She's towed gliders, flown ultralights, wrestled with aerobatics and even dabbled in skydiving while pursuing story leads. She holds an Airline Transport Pilot rating, Multiengine and single-engine flight instructor ratings, as well as glider and rotorcraft (gyroplane) ratings. She's an aircraft owner (an experimental and a factory built machine), too.

She joined the staff of Flying Magazine in 1988 as an editor, where she contributed to the development and expansion of the magazine's training department. In 1991 she left Flying Magazine and created her own company, Marketing Arts. Through Marketing Arts Amy does free-lance editorial writing for several different magazines, including Flight Training, Dive Training and AOPA Pilot. She also does marketing consulting in aviation publishing, Healthcare, education, computer software and flight training. She's edited several textbooks, including Flying Ultralights, Principles of Helicopter Flight, and The Pilot's Manual series of textbooks.

Amy sits on the scholarship and financial committees. She is also a member of the Aircraft Owners' and Pilots' Association, the Experimental Aircraft Association and the Diver's Alert Network.

Amy is married to Barry Marz, an airline captain with a major US carrier. They have two children. They are both avid scuba divers and beach bums when not airborne.