Discovering The Mature Lifestyle
From the U.S., to Africa, to Europe and beyond Page 8
Travel & Adventure
December 15, 2016
December Issue
Airlines career of 45 years led to a lifetime of travel for Twin Cities woman BY SUE WEBBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER Rosemary Soltis took her first airplane tr ip in J anuary 1961, when she was tra ining t o b e a United Airlines s ales rep, calling on tra vel ag ents, incen tive co mpanies and commercial accounts. Despite r etiring f rom a 45year career with United in 2006, she’s still flying. “I’ve b een a lo t o f p laces a nd I’m s till tra veling,” sa id S oltis, a resident o f C hanhassen w ho r ecently returned from a weeklong trip to England. Her a irline ca reer b egan in sales in Chicago for 10 years, and then s he call ed o n tra vel a gents and co mmercial acco unts. “ My first trip with United was t o Curacao in t he N etherlands An tilles,” she s aid. “ Most o f t he tr ips were a co uple o f w eeks. I made a lot of f riends in t he industry. I spent time in p laces I didn ’t expect t o b e. I t had i ts p erks. We stayed in the finest hotels, had the finest w ine and fo od. W hat els e could a little girl from Cambridge do?” She joined women’s travel organizations in t he ind ustry a nd went t o meetin gs a nd co nven-
tions in various parts of the world. “The in ternational co nvention was in Australia,” she said. Later, she a nd her la te h usband, B ob, en joyed tra veling t ogether. H er h usband, f ormerly a University of Minnes ota G opher football p layer, al so o nce p layed football f or th e B oston P atriots. He la ter w orked in co mputers and loved to travel, Soltis said. “I’m glad we did a lot of traveling w hen w e did ,” she s aid. “ We flew ‘space-available’ and were on standby. My husband and I really liked cr uises f or 10 da ys t o tw o weeks. We did a lo t o f w eekend trips.” A na tive o f C ambridge, M innesota, one of Soltis’ first memorable tr ips was t he s enior c lass train tr ip t o Chicag o. “ I was a child of the ‘50s,” she said. “I went to co llege. W hen I was a s enior in college, I a pplied to b e a t our guide. And t hen I had t o find a job. I lo oked in t he Minneapolis newspaper wa nt ads, a nd f ound one f or t he a irlines. In my wildest dreams I had no ide a what it would lead to. In those days, you could b e ma rried a nd w ork f or the airlines, but you couldn’t have babies. We accepted it.” “I got to traveling and enjoyed
it, so I kept doing it,” she said. Soltis even has a g rade school friend in C ambridge who travels with her since retiring from a federal government job.
Her fa vorite tr ips w ere S outh Africa and Australia, and she enjoyed a s afari and a G reek island cruise. “I would go back to Australia in a he artbeat,” S oltis s aid.
“It’s 14 ho urs a nd 40 min utes to A ustralia f rom L os An geles. SOLTIS - TO PAGE 3
Rosemary Soltis is pictured at the 9/11 memorial reflecting pool in New York. (Submitted photo)