Ashley started her career as an FA-18F Weapons Systems Officer in the U.S. Navy. She served for 11 years and deployed in 2011 and 2017 aboard the USS George H.W. Bush in support of Operations Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), New Dawn (Iraq), and Inherent Resolve (Syria/Iraq). She graduated from the U.S. Navy’s Strike Fighter Weapons School (better known as TOPGUN) in 2012 and spent 5 years as a Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor before separating from the service in 2017. Ashley graduated from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2019 with her M.B.A., and worked as an Associate Consultant at the McKinsey & Company Boston office until August 2020. For the past 3 years, she has worked as the Vice President of Business Operations at Merlin, a Boston area frontier technology startup developing software to propel the future of autonomous flight.