Bonny Warner (now Bonny Simi; born April 7, 1962, in

Mount Baldy, California Mount Baldy or Mount Baldy Village, formerly Camp Baynham and Camp Baldy, is an unincorporated community in the San Gabriel Mountains, in San Bernardino County near the eastern border of Los Angeles County, in Southern California. It is located ...

) is an American luger who competed from the early 1980s to the early 1990s.Air Line Pilots Association profile on Warner's bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City
- accessed October 25, 2007 She later competed in women's

bobsleigh Bobsleigh or bobsled is a team winter sport that involves making timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Feder ...

from 1999 to 2002. She was a pilot for

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

from 1990 to 2004, when she quit United and went to work for

JetBlue JetBlue Airways Corporation (stylized as jetBlue) is a major American low cost airline, and the seventh largest airline in North America by passengers carried. The airline is headquartered in the Long Island City neighborhood of the New York C ...

Airways. In December 2020 she left Jet Blue and went to work for

Joby Aviation Joby Aviation is a United States venture-backed aviation company, developing an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that it intends to operate as an air taxi service. Joby Aviation is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, a ...

as the Head of Air Operations and People.

Luge career

Warner's career in luge began when she was a torchbearer for the

1980 Winter Olympics The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially the XIII Olympic Winter Games and also known as Lake Placid 1980, were an international multi-sport event held from February 13 to 24, 1980, in Lake Placid, New York, United States. Lake Placid was elected ...

Lake Placid, New York Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,303. The village of Lake Placid is near the center of the town of North Elba, southwest of Plattsburg ...

, while as a freshman from Stanford University. While watching the luge competitions in Lake Placid, she became hooked on the event. This would lead Warner to travel to

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

and follow luge activities over there. Warner would then learn to speak fluent

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

while over there. While at Stanford, Warner switched her major from

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...

broadcast journalism Broadcast journalism is the field of news and journals which are broadcast by electronic methods instead of the older methods, such as printed newspapers and posters. It works on radio (via air, cable, and Internet), television (via air, cable, ...

after earning an

athletic scholarship An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United ...

to play

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

. Competing in three

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

, she earned her best finish of sixth in the women's singles event at Calgary in

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

.1984 luge women's singles results
/ref> Warner also organized Luge camps throughout the United States, which made a huge contribution to the growth of the sport in this country.

Broadcasting career

Following the

1992 Winter Olympics ) , nations = 64 , athletes = 1,801 (1313 men, 488 women) , events = 57 in 6 sports (12 disciplines) , opening = 8 February 1992 , closing = 23 February 1992 , opened_by = President François Mitterrand , cauldron ...

, Warner retired and served as a

color commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main ( play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and ...

for

CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...

during their coverage of the

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

. Prior to that, she had been a

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

sports reporter for the

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

area during the mid-1980s.

Airline career

After the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Warner earned a 10,000

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

scholarship and earned her aviator's license. Prior to joining United in November 1990, she worked as a flight instructor and a corporate pilot. One of Warner's clients as a corporate pilot was the late promoter Bill Graham.

Personal life

Warner married Tony Simi, a firefighter and

paramedic A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research. Not all ambulance personnel are p ...

who was in one of her classes in 1996. A daughter was born in 1998.

Bobsleigh career

After a 1999 vacation to

Park City, Utah Park City is a city in Utah, United States. The vast majority is in Summit County, and it extends into Wasatch County. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back. The city is southeast of downtown Salt Lake City and from Salt Lake Cit ...

, Warner went over to bobsleigh and competed from 1999 to 2002. While searching for a brakeman, she discovered Vonetta Flowers, who would go on to win the gold medal in the two-woman event at the

2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 ( arp, Niico'ooowu' 2002; Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; nv, Sooléí 2002; Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), was an internation ...

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

. Warner's best seasonal finish in the

Bobsleigh World Cup The Bobsleigh World Cup is an annual bobsleigh competitions. It has taken place since the 1984 Winter Olympics The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games ( Serbo-Croatian and Slovene: ''XIV. Zimske olimpijske ...

was third overall in 2000-1. During the 2001-2 Bobsleigh World Cup, Warner carried on her sled a memorial to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

She tried out for the 2002 US team, but did not qualify though Flowers did. She also participated in simulation for bobsleigh starts prior to the 2002 games. Because she did not qualify for the 2002 Winter Olympics, she worked for NBC Sports during their television coverage of the games.

Life since the Winter Olympics

Since her retirement from bobsleigh, Warner was a pilot for JetBlue Airways, eventually moving up the ranks to senior management in the company. She now is President of JetBlue’s Venture Capital arm, JetBlue Technology Ventures.Speakers Platform featuring Warner
- access October 25, 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Warner, Bonny 1962 births Living people American female bobsledders American female lugers American television journalists American female field hockey players Lugers at the 1984 Winter Olympics Lugers at the 1988 Winter Olympics Lugers at the 1992 Winter Olympics Writers from New York (state) Sportspeople from San Francisco Stanford University alumni Television personalities from San Francisco Olympic lugers for the United States Commercial aviators American women television journalists American women commercial aviators Aviators from California 21st-century American women