March 24, 2022
Ollie Haas ’11 has been enamored with planes since he was five years old. Now, he’s blending his passion for aviation with the ingenuity of his Olin education to help make the aviation industry a whole lot easier on Earth.
“I ended up picking Olin for college because it was quirky and project-driven; I knew that it would help me get an engineering degree that I could use in unusual ways,” says Haas, an Austrian-Ugandan who joined Olin as one of the college’s very first international students.
“I ended up picking Olin for college because it was quirky and project-driven; I knew that it would help me get an engineering degree that I could use in unusual ways”
"At Olin, I grew the sustainability side of my persona, spending lots of time in Ben Linder’s Sustainable Design Lab and crafting my own degree with a focus in sustainable design.”
Ollie Haas '11
Alumni
"At Olin, I grew the sustainability side of my persona, spending lots of time in Ben Linder’s Sustainable Design Lab and crafting my own degree with a focus in sustainable design.”
After graduation, Haas and fellow Olin alumnus Jake Felser ’11 cofounded a sustainable design studio called LittleBonsai, helping Boston area businesses improve their product development with an eye toward the environment.
A couple of years in, Haas decided to see what it might be like to pursue a childhood dream and work in the airline industry. He wrote letters to his 10 favorite airlines around the world looking for job opportunities, and he ended up landing a role on a newly formed innovation team for Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong.
“They were looking at new technologies to improve both their passenger experience and their operations on the backend—a team to explore and tinker and think creatively about new solutions,” says Haas. “What they needed was an Oliner!”
During this time, Haas experienced what he calls “a little bit of an existential crisis” when he began to realize that his beloved aviation industry was having an enormously detrimental effect on the environment.
This realization led to Haas’ latest and perhaps grandest idea yet: creating the world’s most sustainable commercial airline, called Tomorrow.
“I started researching, networking and brainstorming around where I think the next big shifts in sustainability in aviation are going to be,” says Haas. “I decided to paint the future I wanted to see, and then figure out how to make it possible. Tomorrow is the result of that big-picture thinking.”
Haas is currently exploring connections with people and ecosystems who are also thinking about ways to use new technologies to create a more environmentally conscious, less damaging airline. Whether he creates it himself or joins an existing team to help manifest his idea, Haas is excited about the prospect of creating the world he envisions.
“Olin taught me how to break down any problem I want to address—even something as overwhelming as this,” says Haas. “I’m a big dreamer, but I also have the humility to see that there are many questions to answer along this path to sustainable aviation. Olin gave me the tools to know where to start.”
To learn more about Haas and Tomorrow, listen to his Frank Talk (video player below) called “How Will You Fly Tomorrow?
