March 18, 2002|By Sean D. Hamill, Tribune staff reporter.
She soon decided to become a pilot, an accomplishment she achieved just a year out of high school. Eventually she obtained her dream job as a captain with United Airlines.
"She was one of these people who could do anything, one of these super-people who ran every day and could ski real well," said John Proko, a family friend who was on a trip with her last week in Aspen, Colo.
So when Ms. Spencer, 39, of Chicago decided Thursday she wanted to go off the main trail and ski on fresh powder by herself, no one questioned her.
But the conditions were ripe for an avalanche, local officials later told her family, and by skiing where she did, Ms. Spencer set a hillside of snow in motion behind her, and "the mountain just swallowed her up," said her mother, Phyllis Martino.
Rescue workers found Ms. Spencer's body under the snow later that day.
Born and raised in Kenosha, where her parents own a chain of dry cleaning businesses, Ms. Spencer moved through school with a single-minded purpose: to fly planes.
After high school, Ms. Spencer took classes at the Gateway Technical Institute's Aviation Program and then entered the aviation program at Purdue University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in aviation and applied sciences.
She quickly began logging the flight hours needed to become a commercial pilot, first as a flight instructor in South Carolina and then flying cargo jets out of Peoria.
In 1989 she was hired by United, beginning her career as a DC-8 flight engineer--where she met her husband, Steve Spencer, a captain.
She moved up to first officer and then captain of a 737, before choosing to move to first officer on a 747 flying international routes.
On Thursday she not only wore a ski helmet but also carried a backpack loaded with water and energy bars in case she had trouble. "She understood the responsibility a pilot has," her mother said, "which is why when this happened ... we had no fear that she wouldn't be all right because she was so calm, cool and collected."
Ms. Spencer also is survived by her father, Daniel Martino; two brothers, David and Daniel Martino II; a stepson, Christopher W. Spencer; a stepdaughter, Stacy L. Spencer; three step-grandchildren; and grandparents John and Angeline Martino and Hattie Sepanski.
