Family ties drew officer toward air force
OTTAWA— Capt. Catherine Cabot is helping Canada’s front-line reconnaissance aircraft remain in the air for years to come.
Cabot, 30, admits she graduated from Montreal’s Concordia University with a degree in software engineering “not knowing it was going to lead me here.”
Yet like many women in the armed forces today, Cabot has a family connection — her father and uncle both served in uniform and her brother is also in the air force.
“It was always something that was in the back of my mind . . . it gave me exposure to all sorts of opportunities in the military,” she said.
“I applied. I was accepted and never really looked back,” Cabot said.
Today, she is an aerospace engineer, a support trade in the Royal Canadian Air Force that oversees the engineering, maintenance and management of aircraft.
In her eight years of service, Cabot has spent time in Comox, B.C., Borden, Ont., Greenwood, N.S. — where the East Coast fleet of CP-140 Aurora aircraft is based — and Winnipeg.
And she did a tour in Afghanistan in 2013, working in Kabul where she helped mentor Afghan air force personnel in aircraft maintenance.
Today, she works in Ottawa involved with a project for ongoing upgrades to the CP-140 Aurora fleet, the four- engine reconnaissance aircraft. (Canada has two Auroras deployed as part its mission against Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL). And she is now studying for a master’s degree in public administration at the Royal Military College.
She acknowledges she’s in one of those military trades that might not be obvious to young people pondering a career in uniform.
“You also have some control over what you want to accomplish in the military. Just because you are a woman that shouldn’t stop you. You do anything you want,” Cabot said.