By Zena HenryIt wasn’t being thick-skinned that soothed Air Services Limited (ASL) executive, pilot and conservationist Annette Arjoon-Martin when she was called ‘Buck Banana’, during her school days; it was the rich heritage of persistence inherited from her Amerindian ancestors.Annette Arjoon in front of her latest idea, the country’s only state-of –the -art fuel farm worth US$1MThat is the same persistence she gave credit to when describing her role and survival in the very prestigious and male-dominated field of aviation.The 48-year-old has been involved in aviation for over 25 years now, playing a pivotal role in the 51-year-old company her father, Yacoob Ally, started. It was not a walk-in-the-park being one of the few women involved in aviation in the mid 80s.The perception of Amerindians being ‘jungle people’ offered no assistance either, but “in a male dominated industry you had to work hard to prove yourself,” Arjoon told Kaieteur News.She spent her early days with Santa Rosa, Arawak grandmother, Rosalind Murray, who cultivatedcoffee for a living. That is where she developed a love for the outdoors and an attachment to animals.“Those years cemented my identity of first and foremost being an Amerindian and all that meant.? You learned to look out for yourself; swimming across the river to meet friends or finding a fruit tree when you were hungry.”“Looking back, the Amerindian trait of persevering through difficulty and hard times grew in me, and in later years, as a working mother in the business world, that attitude of not giving up when problems loomed, was naturally there.”It is part of my Amerindian heritage, Annette continued. “My grandmother was poor and when there was little to eat she would take fresh pepper from the yard, rub it on cassava bread, and that was our meal. I can look back and appreciate that my grandmother hadn’t turned to begging the church for help, or stealing; by her example, she prepared me to make do with what I had.Later on, during my conservation career whether I was in the rough Atlantic Ocean at night heading for Shell Beach or in the middle of the swampy crabwood forest in the Waini I was able to cope.”After early schooling in Guyana, she went on to Codrington High; an all-girls boarding school in Barbados. Her father was instrumental in ensuring her development.“Being in that school, with the structure and discipline,Cheap Air Max Shoes, I learned to focus on setting goals. It brought out my competitive spirit.” With limited airline connections between Barbados and Guyana, Annette Arjoon’s father- whose family was involved in the timber industry- purchased a Cessna 310 for work and to take his children to and from Barbados.“From that I saw, even as a student that limited airlift to and in Guyana would hamper our country’s development.”Fresh out of high school, Arjoon joined her dad’s timber business, A.? Mazaharally and Son’s; the genesis of Air Services which had one aircraft accessing remote timber concessions. “In those days, the scarcity of pilots resulted in some of them having prima donna attitudes, and in order to be independent of that I went to Briko Flight School in Trinidad and obtained my Private Pilot’s Licence.”She built flying hours around timber concessions, but as fate would have it, she grew into aviation management.When Annette entered aviation management in 1985, there were few female pilots, she said. “There were no female engineers, a few in flight operations but none in aviation management.” “As a female Manager?in a male-dominated industry, I felt I had to work harder to earn the respect of the macho aviation fraternity. I had to work harder to prove myself.”Arjoon recalled at one time being involved in an important meeting with big names in the sector. “Every time I said something I was shut down. I got so angry that I slammed my hand on the desk and yelled, what do I have to do to be heard around here? That is when I was finally given an ear,” she said.Arjoon on one of the Mangrove planting exercises.Nonetheless, Annette Arjoon is most proud of overseeing the transition of ASL’s piston-engine fleet to the fuel-efficient and environmentally-friendly turbine engines; the establishment of satellite operations at Mahdia, the involvement of more women in the sector and having a hinterland internship programme.Another treasure of the ASL General Manager is,Wholesale China Jerseys, “One incomplete,Cheap Stitched Jerseys, but massively beneficial project; the utilization of our state of the art fuel farm. Not only has it raised the standards of fuel handling, but most critically,Womens Nike Free Run, enabling us to control our aviation fuel supply and operational cost with tangible benefits to the travelling public.“Additionally, for the first ti