Amy Bauernschmidt selected as first woman for carrier command

A veteran helicopter pilot will be the first woman to command one of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt is one of only six officers who was selected by the Navy’s fiscal year 2022 major command screening board. Officials with Naval Air Forces in San Diego, Calif. confirmed the pick but said it wasn’t immediately known which of the Navy’s 11 aircraft carriers she will command.

She graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1994, the first year women were allowed to serve on combat ships. Capt. Bauernschmidt received her aviation wings two years later and was assigned as a helicopter pilot in support of maritime interdiction operations in the Northern Arabian Gulf, according to her official Navy biography.

She has accumulated more than 3,000 flight hours in a variety of Naval aircraft, officials said.

Capt. Baurernschmidt commanded a helicopter squadron aboard the U.S.S. Geroge H. W. Bush during Operation Enduring Freedom and later was the second-in-command of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln - the first woman to be named executive officer of an aircraft carrier. Most recently, she commanded the U.S.S. San Diego, an amphibious transport dock ship.

In 2013, Capt. Baurenschmidt was with the U.S. State Department as the senior military advisor to the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, according to her biography.