In June of 2017, Mike Ott – a pilot working in international air ambulance transport – was preparing for a very important mission. He and his team were tasked with flying to North Korea to transport Otto Warmbier, an American college student who had been imprisoned in North Korea since January of 2016 for attempting to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel. Warmbier was detained by North Korean authorities in Pyongyang International Airport after visiting North Korea with a guided tour group. Several months later, he was convicted of subversion and sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment with hard labor.
Shortly after Warmbier’s conviction, he suffered a neurological injury from an unconfirmed cause and fell into a coma. His imprisonment and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his condition became worldwide news as well as a major tension between the U.S and North Korea. After nearly a year and a half of imprisonment, the U.S. government successfully petitioned North Korea to release Warmbier so he could be repatriated to his home in Cincinnati, Ohio, and treated for injuries there. That’s where Ott came in.
At the time of Ott’s mission to North Korea, he had nearly two decades of experience working for Phoenix Air Group, a global air ambulance service. He worked his way up from copilot to safety manager and captain and had led hundreds of missions – transporting patients from all over the world back to their families. To Ott, reuniting patients with their families was the most important part of any mission, and Warmbier was no different – even if it seemed like the whole world was watching.
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“Bringing patients home is extremely important,” Ott said. “The job could be incredibly stressful, long hours, flying all over the world – but it was wonderful to be an agent of that reunification, to be able to see the family’s joy and relief at that moment.”
As an air ambulance pilot, Ott’s missions were sometimes a secret until they were completed successfully. In this case, Warmbier’s family didn’t know he was coming home until Ott and his team had flown out of North Korean airspace and were making their way back to the States.
“You never want to tell a family prematurely, because there are many things that can go wrong with such a complicated diplomatic exchange, and the disappointment would be crushing if it didn’t work,” Ott said. “So, to me, that was the most meaningful part of this mission – not getting into and out of North Korea but bringing him back to his family.”
Warmbier was repatriated to the United States on June 13, 2017. He passed away six days later, on June 19, after his family made the decision to remove his feeding tube. Despite the tragic outcome, Ott said he still considers this mission – and others like it – a success.
“Giving his family the chance to say goodbye was so important,” Ott said.
From Air Ambulance Pilot to Purdue Student
Some pilots might have rested on their laurels after a long and successful career in air ambulance work and aviation safety, but not Ott. Though he’d traveled the entire world (except for Antarctica) several times over, Ott still felt like he had more to learn. So, he started researching going back to school for a graduate degree.
“I had a training budget at my job, and D.C. has all these certificate mills that basically exist to teach esoteric government skills that don’t apply to me or my job,” Ott said. “I didn’t want to get a certificate in something I wouldn’t use, so I started thinking about master’s programs.”
Ott needed a graduate program that would work with his day job, so he focused his search on online options. After looking at Purdue’s Online Master of Science in Aviation and Aerospace Management, he knew the program would be a great fit.
“Purdue was a standout for lots of reasons,” Ott said. “The esteem of the university itself, especially in aviation, was a big draw. Purdue is a universally recognized name – anyone in the aviation field knows how influential Purdue is.”
Ott started his master’s in summer of 2019, fitting in courses between his busy work schedule as a senior aviation advisor. The first two semesters of the program went smoothly, but then COVID hit.
“During 2020, my job at the Department of State ramped up a lot,” Ott said. “I was working 18-hour days seven days a week, responding to the crisis and then coordinating vaccine delivery. It was nonstop for months.”
Because of his work schedule, Ott had to put the program on hold for that year. Luckily, Purdue Polytechnic administrative staff, especially online program specialist Carrie Clark, was understanding and accommodating – giving him the flexibility he needed to focus on his job without stressing about the demands of the program. After things slowed down, Ott was able to come back to his master’s without issue. He finished in December 2021, also earning an Online Graduate Certificate in Aviation Safety Management – but still felt like there were stones left unturned.
“My experience getting the master’s was so good, I started to think about continuing into a doctoral program,” Ott said. “I looked around, applied, and then was accepted into a couple of programs, including Purdue’s Online Doctor of Technology program. Again, I came to the conclusion that Purdue’s program was the best one out there for me.”
Ott started his Doctor of Technology degree in August 2022. According to Ott, pursuing his doctorate at Purdue has further confirmed his passion for learning new things. Ott describes himself as an intellectual “sponge” eager to soak up new information, and at Purdue he’s had the opportunity to collaborate with other people who share his thirst for knowledge.
“In the DTech program, you have people from all these different fields collaborating and taking classes with each other,” Ott said. “I study aviation safety, but I also know students in the program whose research focuses on cloud computing, for example – something I’m unfamiliar with – and it’s been a great joy to get to learn from all these people.”
Ott also appreciates how customizable the program is. Though the program has required courses, there are even more elective credits. And as a Purdue doctoral student, he has access to online graduate courses from colleges across campus.
“If I want to take a business or management course, I can see Krannert’s online offerings and do that,” Ott said. “If I want to take a course in liberal arts, I can do that, too. So, this program fits the breadth of my interests – I've never wanted to be pigeonholed to one thing.”
Throughout the course of his graduate studies at Purdue, Ott has never felt limited in his quest for knowledge. He appreciates the support and encouragement of his professors, who have helped him flesh out research ideas and plan his dissertation. Purdue’s faculty have also been happy to answer Ott’s questions, which, he admits, there are usually a lot of.
“I’m the kind of person that goes into any interaction wanting to learn something,” Ott said. “Especially when you’re dealing with Purdue faculty who are such experts in their fields, I’ve always been the person who has a lot of questions, and the professors are happy to oblige.”
Ultimately, Ott is excited to finish his doctoral work, but he has no expectation that his journey as a student will stop there. Ott describes himself as a lifelong learner, and his studies have taken him all over the world – from coordinating one of the most famous air ambulance transports in history to doing research on aviation safety at Purdue.
“I don’t ever want to stop learning,” Ott said. “And at Purdue, I get to study in my field, I get to have a world-class university behind that effort, and I get to keep my day job doing what I love – you can’t normally say that. It’s been a great honor.”
To learn more about Purdue’s Doctor of Technology program, Master’s in Aviation and Aerospace Management program, and Graduate Certificate in Aviation Safety Management, please visit the program’s webpages.
