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Gretchen McClain went from a career in space to president of a business that ensures water quality. She's excited about the chance to make a difference in the lives of everyday people.
"I had a passion to go into space, and I did it with NASA. Now I'm out of that. There are people who don't have water at their fingertips, and we can provide a better quality of life for them," McClain says.
McClain is president of residential and commercial water in the fluid technology segment of ITT Corp (Chicago, IL). The group is a global manufacturer and marketer of water and wastewater pumps, valves, heat exchangers, controls and more for apps from residential and commercial buildings to agriculture and irrigation. ITT, a multi-industry company, also works in defense electronics and services, electronic components and other areas.
Implementing global business
ITT recruited McClain in 2005 to architect and implement the global business. The fluid technology segment has ten manufacturing and marketing facilities worldwide.
More than half the business is in North America, a third in Western Europe and 10 percent in Asia, with some forays into Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. There are about 4,000 employees worldwide, some 10 percent of the total ITT workforce.
A dozen top execs are McClain's direct reports. "You can't over-communicate when you have a global organization," she says.
Since she's been in this job, she's spent a great deal of her time on the road. "My background is in aerospace and now I'm running a large commercial organization. I want to get out there to understand the people that work for us and our customers."
Investing in technology
McClain notes that the segment is a collection of many businesses acquired by ITT over the years. Its products represent the latest technological advances, she says, and she wants to invest even more in technology.
"We need more R&D in water quality, effectively moving water for reuse and providing technology for efficiency. We also need to offer solutions to help save on costs."
Starting out
McClain grew up in Cumberland, MD and Salt Lake City, UT. She was one of four children, and three of them became engineers. Their ME father taught all his kids to "love the great outdoors," which probably contributed to her interest in space as well as in water.
While working on her 1984 BSME at the University of Utah and afterwards, McClain co-opped as an analytical/design engineer for Hercules Inc (Magna, UT). She worked on case design and analytical studies of composite materials for defense programs.
In 1985 she joined Atlantic Research Corp (Gainesville, VA). As advanced composite materials project manager, she was the lead engineer in the company's research lab. Two years later she moved to a post as structures/dynamics engineer at Grumman Corp (Reston, VA). It was her introduction to space.
The NASA rollercoaster ride
In 1990 McClain joined NASA's Space Station Freedom program office in Reston, VA. She ran the resource management office, which researched and defined how the international space station would be assembled.
She held four jobs at NASA from 1993 to 1999, each moving the space station program forward. She was deputy director of the office of space flight, chief director of the space station HQ office, special assistant to the associate admin of the office of space flight, and deputy associate admin for space development in the office of space flight. In the deputy job she managed the space station's $2 billion annual budget, including the shuttle/Mir missions.
The entire NASA experience was "a rollercoaster ride," McClain reflects. "It gave me the opportunity to be good at program managing and stressed the need to be flexible but decisive."
Moving up at Honeywell
In 1999 she moved to AlliedSignal (now Honeywell International, Phoenix, AZ). It was a diversified commercial aerospace operation employing a number of women leaders, and McClain was looking for the opportunity to take on bigger jobs faster.
She was also interested in getting experience in a profit-making business. "As a government agency, NASA was nonprofit. We were driven by a different set of stakeholder requirements and I wanted to be able to prove my leadership capabilities in private industry," she says.
At Honeywell, McClain worked on helping the company achieve sustainable growth. She started as VP of program management, then became VP of regional business and general aviation airframe systems, a global aerospace business.
As VP of engines, systems and services engineering, technology and program management, she directed engineering and technology activities across a 4,000-employee global workforce. Then she was VP/GM of business, general aviation and helicopter commercial electronics systems.
Clean water for the world
ITT came calling in 2005 and McClain responded, moving into the fascinating new arena of clean water. "I wanted to go into an industry that was growing substantially. The water industry provides solutions for a problem that faces us as a nation and around the world," McClain says.
"It was an opportunity to take my technology knowledge and experience and bring it to an industry that was slower in seeing change."
Soon after she joined ITT the world was shocked by the huge disaster of the 2005 tsunami. She was impressed that the company and many employees volunteered extended time and money to help in the affected countries.
McClain describes her marriage as the happy union of "one workaholic and one entrepreneur." Her husband is an engineering consultant with his own practice.
When addressing groups of women in management, McClain advises them to "Be intellectually curious and broad in your thinking. Your future is up to you to create and define as you go along."
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