FAA Pride Director-at-Large Andrea L. Zimbardi (she/her) Program Manager: Aviation Safety (AVS), Aircraft Certification Service (AIR), Policy & Standards Division (AIR-641)
Andrea (she/her) supports FAA’s Aircraft Certification Service (AIR) Service/Office (S/O) as a Program Manager for the Integration & Performance Branch. She leads teams to provide strategic responses to the legislation requirements, helps strengthen and broaden programmatic reviews, and provides innovative approaches to project and program management practices. By conducting comprehensive data analysis and using cooperative, high-level problem solving skills, she helps teams redesign or create innovative ways to address problems both simple and complex. Currently, Andrea is serving the FAA community as a Director-at-Large in FAA Pride, the FAA's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual or Ally (LGBTQIA+) employee association. She also is the Co-Chair for FAA Pride’s Constitution, Bylaws and Resolutions Committee and a member of FAA Pride's Events Planning Committee. Before joining the FAA, Andrea was a self-owned business consultant and also has over 16 years experience in leadership and engineering positions with Fortune 500 companies like Rockwell Collins and Coca-Cola. Andrea helped companies drive transformational change by delivering streamlined processes and coaching associates, leaders and executives on applying Lean Six Sigma (LSS) principles, resulting in saving organizations a combined total of over $10 million.Before entering the workforce, she spoke nationwide on the necessity for fairness and equal opportunity for all athletes on and off the playing field after being released from the University of Florida’s varsity women’s softball team for alleged sexual orientation discrimination. To protect LGBTQIA+ athletes, Andrea influenced an agreement with the university to enact a sexual orientation component in the university’s policies and annual non-discrimination staff training. Through her advocacy, the University of Florida became the first public institution in the state of Florida to include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy. In her spare time, Andrea still loves playing softball, completing home renovation projects and fishing. She also enjoys spending time with her partner solving escape games and taking road trips around the country. |
