If ever a CEO were tailor-made to lead a nonprofit organization, it’s Dana Donati of Breaking Down Barriers.

BDB, as it’s known, is a Dallas-based 501(c)(3) that’s focused on providing aviation education and opportunities to young people in underserved communities.

Donati, the nonprofit’s chief executive since 2023, fits the role like a glove because she’s taught students to fly for years—and got involved in aviation herself when she was just 15. 

“I grew up in a military family,” she recalls. “When we were living in Pittsburgh, we took a trip to Germany on a KC135 aircraft, and the officers asked if I wanted to sit on the flight deck.”

She was supposed to leave after takeoff but stayed longer, fascinated by all the buttons, switches, and levers in front of her.

“That poor guy—I’m sure he wasn’t being paid enough to answer all my questions,” Donati says, laughing.

The experience stuck, and she started planning her return trip to the flight deck. Three years and two college degrees later, she began training to be a flight instructor and flew for her first airline at the age of 22.

“I loved it, but I decided to step down from the demanding schedule of a commercial pilot because our kids were young and becoming more active,” she says. “My husband is also a pilot—he flies for American—and we had been doing that ‘schedule shuffle’ to try to accommodate everyone.”

To Donati, teaching was the next logical step. “Aviation training has a bunch of barriers,” she says. “They’re different for everyone, and I am really passionate about helping remove those where I can.”

By 2023, when Donati had become CEO of United Aviate Academy—United Airline’s flight school in Goodyear, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix—she got a phone call that would lead to the Lone Star State and BDB.

Gwen and Doug Parker, founders of Breaking Down Barriers, at the Frontiers of Flight Museum. [Photo: BDB]

Only small percentages of black and female pilots

“Doug and Gwen Parker reached out to me and described their nonprofit Breaking Down Barriers, which brings aviation to high achievers in the Dallas community who don’t have the resources to explore a career in this industry,” Donati remembers. 

The name Doug Parker may be familiar to those in North Texas. Before entering the nonprofit world, Parker was CEO of Fort Worth-based American Airlines from 2013 to 2022. After retiring he and his wife co-founded BDB, mindful of some statistics he’d come across over the course of his career:

• Only 3.5 % of U.S. airline pilots identify as Black;
• Just 0.5% identify as Black female airline pilots;
• Only 7% of all airline pilots of all races are female.

It didn’t take long for Donati to accept the Parkers’ offer to lead BDB and move her family from Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth. 

BDB awards 12 scholarships for flight training each year, but it educates students on all aspects of the aviation industry. The idea is for them to follow their own paths into a field that can be both lucrative and professionally fulfilling.

“What inspires me is when I have the opportunity to go into some of these schools that don’t necessarily have the resources they need to help students explore an interest in aviation,” Donati says. “I can step in and say, ‘OK, how can we help?’ ”

Donati says she especially likes recruiting young people who play sports, because they tend to have good hand-eye coordination and are able to listen to feedback and coaching.

“They typically excel in the program,” she says.

‘She kept coming back trying to recruit us’

Consider 20-year-old Kyra Lee, for example.

As a senior in high school, Lee had thought about flying as a career, but didn’t see a way to make it happen.

She then was recruited to play basketball at Dallas College’s Cedar Valley campus, and was considering what else she might want to do when Donati walked in with an offer.

Lee admits to being skeptical at first. “I’m gonna be honest,” she says. “We all were looking at her like, ‘What are you talking about, lady? A flight scholarship?’”

In fact, Lee thought a stranger walking in off the street, promising up to $100,000 to make her dream come true, had all the earmarks of a scam.

“But,” she says, “my interest was piqued, and she kept coming back trying to recruit us.”

Finally, Lee agreed to hear Donati out. She then completed the remaining 44 credit hours needed for graduation so she could enroll in the BDB session that began in August 2024.

The BDB program consists of 12 to 18 months of education and flying time, and students must test to advance through each level.

Last month, Lee passed her “check ride,” where she demonstrated her skills and knowledge to an examiner from the Federal Aviation Administration.

With that achievement, she now has her private pilot certificate.

Lee’s goal is to earn an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, which is necessary for flying cargo planes, and she’s fully committed to the process.

Kyra Lee sits in the cockpit virtually before training to be a pilot. [Photo: BDB]

A VR headset helps spark students’ interest

Industry-wide, there’s a growing pilot shortage. BDB believes it can help by reaching out to groups of people who never considered that flying a plane was achievable.

The organization has found that all it takes to spark interest sometimes is giving kids an experience.

For Donati, that experience was sitting in a flight deck at age 15. BDB’s experience often starts with a VR headset.

“We take it into high schools and you can see the excitement start as soon as they put it on,” Donati says. “They look up and look around, and they’re sitting inside the cockpit of an Airbus or a Boeing.”

While it can be intimidating to see all those buttons, Donati assures them that just getting comfortable in the seat is the first step. If they’re interested in exploring further, they’re asked to apply.

Those who pass an aptitude test and a medical exam are paired up with a flight school closest to where they live. In North Texas, for instance, there are flight schools at more than 15 airports.

“Once they start flight training, we really interact with them in more of a mentorship capacity,” Donati says.

“We’re really good friends now,” says Lee, laughing, remembering how she first thought “this lady” was too good to be true.

Instead, Donati—and BDB—have given Lee a chance to pivot the direction of her life.

Breaking Down Barriers is starting in southern Dallas County and will look to expand regionally and nationally according to demand.

Voices contributor Nicole Ward is a data journalist for the Dallas Regional Chamber.

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