Changing technologies
OPPORTUNITIES IN AEROSPACE AND DEFENSE

Aerospace & defense: successful & essential sectors

Most companies prefer seasoned techies with good experience in their specialties, which may run the gamut from AI to security investigations

The people in this article love their work, find it worthwhile and fascinating, and have high hopes for the future

By Laurel McKee Ranger
Contributing Editor

Charles Stark Draper Labs' Lauren Kessler holds the joystick in a Lunar Lander autonomous flight management simulator.

As a senior analyst at SAIC, Dr Wil Myrick researches advanced adaptive signal processing techniques.

The U.S. aerospace industry remains one of the most successful sectors of the economy, and a major contributor to the nation's balance of trade. According to the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), total sales in 2006 were $184 billion, an increase of 8 percent from 2005. 2006 exports totaled $82 billion, a net trade surplus of $52 billion for the sector. The AIA is projecting an additional 6 percent growth in sales for 2007.

The major contributor to the increase is expected to be commercial aircraft engines and parts, and foreign military sales will boost the numbers as well. Missiles are expected to rebound this year and space sector sales should increase by some 3 percent.

The shift in power in Congress after the 2006 elections is not expected to have an immediate effect on defense spending, according to industry observers. In January John Douglass, AIA president, predicted that defense spending will stay strong for the next several years.

Employment on the rise
Employment in aerospace has been increasing since 2003, and the civil aviation sector of the industry, at least, should remain robust. By September 2006 employment had increased to 635,800 and the growth in 2007 is expected to total 3.7 percent.

The greatest growth will be seen in production, where some 63,000 new jobs are expected to be created this year.

Five of the techies in this article were part of the industry during the relatively lean pre-2003 decade. The others joined the industry during its current upsurge. They all love their work, find it fascinating and worthwhile, and have high hopes for its future.

Lauren J. Kessler is principal tech staffer at Draper Lab
R&D is a crucial component of the aerospace and defense sector. As a principal member of the technical staff at Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (Cambridge, MA), Lauren J. Kessler is an integral player in R&D.

Draper is an R&D lab staffed by more than 750 engineers, scientists and technicians. They work on strategic systems, space systems, tactical systems, special ops and even biomedical engineering programs for both government and commercial sponsors.

Kessler has a BA in math and psychology from the University of Colorado and an MSCS from Boston University (Boston, MA). Before coming to Draper in 2004 she held software positions at several companies specializing in aerospace, including Hughes Aircraft (Culver City, CA), Mitre Corp (Bedford, MA) and Northstar Technologies/Avidyne Corp (Lincoln, MA). She worked in modeling and simulation, software architecture and integration, and navigation management systems.

The structure at Draper is fairly fluid, Kessler notes. Engineers and scientists may work on projects for several different divisions at the same time. "I spend about half my time on space systems and the other half on autonomous underwater vehicles," Kessler reveals.

She's a task leader for the Lunar Lander autonomous flight manager, and principal investigator for an internal R&D project. She's also a team member on unmanned underwater vehicles. "In software we're associated by technology, and I'm in the autonomous mission control group," she explains.

Autonomous mission control applies to vehicles designed for unmanned underwater exploration, land and air surveys or extraterrestrial discovery. They use onboard intelligence to adapt to new conditions and situations. The ability to adapt involves making decisions and changing operations.

"In spacecraft we're beginning to push the envelope on this, but we have to balance autonomy with safety. Some day humans may go up in these vehicles, so we want them to accept human input as well," Kessler says.

"Integrating humans as a critical component of system design" is one of the biggest challenges Kessler faces. "We need to harness human creativity and couple it with the technology to create vastly superior systems," she explains.

A major challenge of another type involves encouraging women to enter and stay in engineering. "My own work is so rewarding and the people I work with are intelligent, motivated and interested in collaboration. I think it's an environment where many women would be energized and excited," Kessler declares.

Besides her work at Draper, Kessler is a commercial helicopter pilot. When she was a young girl her ChE father introduced her to James Beggs, a onetime NASA administrator. "He gave me a beautiful photograph of the space shuttle and it's been a touchstone of inspiration for me. It has kept my imagination in the stars."

Draper seeks varied backgrounds
Jeanne Benoit, principal HR director at Draper, is looking for degrees in aeronautical science and aeronautical physics, as well as EE, ME, optical, RF, biomedical, systems and software engineering, and computer science. More than half the Draper openings are for midlevel people and about 30 percent for entry level.

"We have a lot of wonderful new projects, especially from NASA," Benoit says. "Our management team is looking to increase the number of women and minorities working here, as well as veterans and people with disabilities. Having a diverse workforce makes us a richer organization."

Dr Lisa W. Billman is a senior manager at ARINC

Dr Lisa W. Billman.

Like Lauren Kessler, Lisa W. Billman, PhD brings a background in psychology and engineering plus a love of flying to her work. And, also like Kessler, she finds human systems integration an increasingly important aspect of complex systems.

Billman is a senior manager at ARINC Engineering Services LLC (Annapolis, MD). ARINC provides transportation, communications and systems engineering solutions for aviation, airports, defense, government and transportation clients.

"We're helping the Office of Naval Research oversee the design of a system to manage multiple unmanned vehicles," Billman explains. "The software has engineering algorithms that tell a system where its vehicles can go and what it can do, but this all has to make sense to the human operator.

"The design engineers are trying to get a group of unmanned vehicles to perform as a team and accomplish a mission. The human becomes the coach for the system."

Billman received a BA in psychology from the University of Maryland-College Park in 1985; her MA and PhD in engineering psychology are from the University of Illinois-Champagne/Urbana in 1987 and 1990. When she graduated she joined the National Research Council as a post-doc Fellow, working at Brooks Air Force Base School of Aerospace Medicine (San Antonio, TX).

"We were examining pilot spatial orientation," she explains. "You need really good displays in cockpits because the body can get easily confused under the stressful circumstances in an Air Force jet." Later she worked for Krug Life Sciences (San Antonio, TX), doing more spatial research with pilots.

Besides her other qualifications, Billman is especially well suited to her line of work because her husband is a retired Air Force pilot and the couple used to fly their own plane. In 1994 her husband was transferred to Andrews Air Force Base (Washington, DC). "I was going to be a stay-at-home mom with my new baby," she says, "but ARINC called and I ended up working for them."

In her current position she's responsible for human systems integration for ARINC's aerospace systems engineering division. She does design work, writes requirements, does test and evaluation, and assesses and evaluates designs. "I look at everything with an eye toward the user," she says.

There are fifteen members on her team and she also runs the San Antonio office, she reports.

Her job has her on the road about 30 percent of the time, and with 11- and 12-year-olds at home, her husband has become a stay-at-home dad.

"ARINC has been wonderful," she says. "They not only let me have a very flexible schedule, but they adjusted to our having to move around the country while my husband was in the Air Force."

Billman finds her work exciting. "Computers need to resolve conflicts and calculate risks and benefits. Human operators need to communicate contingencies.

"We are beginning to bridge the gap between software and the human mind," she concludes.

SAIC needs engineers of many kinds
SAIC (San Diego, CA) provides systems, solutions and technical services to the military, government, homeland security and some commercial clients. Ken Dahlberg, chair and CEO, says, "At the core of SAIC's mission and values is our commitment to recruit, retain and advance a diverse team of talented, highly motivated professionals."

Kara Yarnot, senior HR project manager in corporate staffing, notes that SAIC usually has some 3,000 open positions, "well over 60 percent of them in technical and engineering areas." She hires MEs, EEs, CEs, ChEs, IEs, EnvEs and software, systems and computer engineers, "depending on the business, location and type of work we're doing." Many of the jobs require security clearance.

Dr Wil Myrick: core R&D at SAIC

Dr Wil Myrick.

Wil Myrick, PhD, is a senior analyst at SAIC. He's doing R&D in advanced adaptive signal processing techniques, working on a number of projects. "Our customers come in with problems, and we have a diverse team of physicists, engineers and mathematicians to work on them. We've come up with some very interesting solutions to very difficult problems. The diversity of backgrounds here helps."

Myrick is one of forty or fifty folks in SAIC's core R&D group. Occasionally he also works on proposals.

He started out with a 1993 BS in electronics engineering from Norfolk State University (Norfolk, VA). His 1995 MS and 2000 PhD in EE are from Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN).

Much of Myrick's PhD work was on algorithms to solve adaptive signal processing problems, and that's still his area of focus today. When he completed the PhD he found a job as an R&D analyst with SAIC. "It was a really nice fit," he says.

"I have always been interested in the defense industry, and I feel very proud to be able to do something that can help our country."

One of the major challenges of his job is turning ideas into operational systems. "A lot of R&D isn't quite there because it hasn't been proved in a system. The tough part is taking a concept to reality and doing it quickly."

Myrick is a nationally recognized expert in advanced adaptive signal processing. In 2006 he received the Black Engineer of the Year award for career achievement in industry. He's also received high recognition from SAIC: an award for outstanding new leaders in 2003, and a 2005 award "for pushing the boundaries of technology."

Sarah Zalewski: aerospace and defense at Booz Allen

Sarah Zalewski.

Sarah Zalewski is an associate in the global aerospace and defense practice of Booz Allen Hamilton (McLean, VA). Booz Allen is a consulting firm that works across a broad range of industries, and Zalewski's team of about fifty consults on issues of strategy and ops for aerospace and defense clients.

Zalewski has a 2002 BS in biomedical and electrical engineering and a 2005 MS in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD). Before joining Booz Allen in 2005, she was in a three-year engineering leadership development program at Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, MD), where one of her projects was work on a missile launch system for the Navy. She also did research-oriented summer internships at Johns Hopkins.

A typical project at Booz Allen lasts about three months. "We research the client's problem and come back with recommendations," she explains.

Right now she's working with a defense industry client hoping to cut about 20 percent of the costs of a major product line. "We're trying to identify the biggest cost elements and figure out strategies to reduce them." She's usually at the client site four days a week, then back in the home office one day.

Zalewski's grandfather owns a CE firm, several other members of her family are CEs, and her mother teaches math. "I started college in the arts," she says, "but after three months I transferred to engineering."

She thoroughly enjoys the cutting-edge technology she meets in aerospace and defense. "There are a lot of complex problems and interesting technical challenges. I like the variety, and I also like that I'm working in support of a worthwhile cause."

Catherine DeLeonardis directs info security at USIS

Catherine DeLeonardis.

USIS (Falls Church, VA) sells screening and security services to corporate and government clients, and does security investigations for the U.S. government. As director of information security and business systems, Catherine DeLeonardis leads all Sarbanes-Oxley IT compliance programs and information security projects at the company.

"We have to make sure the systems are locked down and completely inaccessible to fraudulent activities," she explains. "We spend a significant amount of time making sure that any part of our system that interfaces with our defense customers is absolutely secure. The information is on our servers and behind our firewalls."

DeLeonardis has a 2000 BS in business admin and marketing from Auburn University (Auburn, AL). She began her career at Philips Medical Systems as a market research analyst, built a relationship with the IT team and picked up technical skills as she did data mining and put together reports for the executive staff. "Then our company bought four more large businesses, and we had to integrate them into our SAP system."

By 2002 DeLeonardis was a project specialist in IT on the SAP team, and moved up to manager of master data management, guiding a staff of six and centralizing and creating the master data team. "We became the center for Sarbanes-Oxley requirements," she notes.

In 2005 she took her expertise into government security when she joined USIS. "I find this kind of work very exciting," she says.

ITT seeks experienced engineers
"Most of our hiring is technical," notes Holly Walkland, senior HR manager in the space systems division of ITT Corp (White Plains, NY). The engineering and manufacturing firm supplies defense electronics and services as well as industrial and municipal products and services.

The space systems division, with HQ in Rochester, NY, has more than 2,600 employees. It supplies remote sensing products for government and commercial customers that are used in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, space science, GPS and meteorological systems.

Walkland is looking for software, structural, mechanical, systems, thermal design, material, electrical, embedded software and optical engineers and image scientists, and has a special interest in experienced aerospace engineers. The company usually has a hundred or more openings, more than half of them for folks with experience.

With so much of the company's hardware headed for space, "We have to get it right while it's on the ground. Making corrections after a launch is very difficult," Walkland explains.

Norman Lopez works in remote sensing at ITT and NRO

Norman Lopez.

Norman Lopez is a senior research scientist in the ITT space systems division. He works on the airborne natural gas emission Lidar (ANGEL) service program, a technology that remotely senses leaks that could cause explosions in natural-gas pipelines.

But Lopez isn't with ANGEL right now. He's currently on loan as a technology Fellow at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO, Washington, DC), which builds and operates the nation's reconnaissance satellites.

Before moving to the temporary assignment at NRO, Lopez was team lead for ITT's Rochester, NY-based advanced concepts and architecture group. The group processes raw data captured by satellite into visually comprehensible information.

Lopez' expertise is with active imaging systems that collect remotely sensed data. He's experienced in both radar and commercial laser remote sensing, which he learned on the job and at the University of Puerto Rico-MayagŸez. In 2000 he completed his BSEE at MayagŸez, with a focus on signal processing, control and communication systems.

Kodak hired him for its two-year rotational program in imaging science, and while working in the program he also finished coursework for an MSEE at the Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY). Kodak's space systems division was acquired by ITT in 2004.

Lopez likes the "cool technology" found in aerospace and defense. "You take the concepts you learned at school and expand them to a whole area you didn't even think was possible." But he thinks that his greatest accomplishment so far has been his work on the ANGEL service program. "I was part of the original team that worked out the brains of the system. It's been a very satisfying project," he says.

Despite his busy work schedule and a home life that includes his wife and infant daughter, Lopez still makes time for MayagŸez. "I interact with students by e-mail and every so often I go back and see them personally. That's been a very satisfying experience as well, and we even hired one of the students here."

Raytheon needs techies in hardware, software and systems
Raytheon (Waltham, MA) has engineering positions open in hardware, software and design of large, complex defense and commercial electronic systems. It looks for EEs, computer engineers and computer scientists, and also hires MEs and aeronautical/ aerospace engineers, physicists and material scientists.

Hayward Bell, chief diversity officer, notes that "At Raytheon, diversity is about inclusiveness. Regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, family history or physical condition, we want everyone to feel valued and empowered to perform at peak level."

Walter Guiot: software engineering lead at Raytheon

Walter Guiot.

Walter Guiot is the seeker software lead for the small-diameter bomb II (SDB II) program at Raytheon's Tucson, AZ facility. The SDB II, he says, "is an innovative weapon that works in multiple environments and against both stationary and moving targets."

His team is creating software to control the signal processing function of the bomb's multiple sensors. The team has five members now, but he expects it to grow to twelve.

Guiot graduated from the University of Puerto Rico-MayagŸez in 1999 with a BS in computer engineering. He settled at Raytheon's Tucson facility because work there involved embedded software, a focus of his undergrad research.

In 2004 he was picked for Raytheon's year-long systems engineering technology development program. Part of the work is a group project that benefits one of the company's business units, and his group's project was voted best by all the participants, he says.

Last year Guiot started Raytheon's chief engineer development program, which includes rotations, workshops and coursework. The program lasts about five years, and the clever techies who ace it come out with formal nominations as chief engineers. Guiot has already received Raytheon awards for distinguished engineering and excellence in growth.

He notes that his father, grandfather and both uncles were all in the military. "The work I do is the closest I could do in our tradition and still use my technical skills. That is very important to me."

"I wake up every day wanting to come to work," he says. "I feel I serve a purpose. We're working with world-class technology and saving lives. Not many people can say that about their jobs."

Ashok Agnihotri directs flight technology at Bell Helicopter

Ashok Agnihotri.

Ashok Agnihotri is director of flight technology and simulation for Bell Helicopter (Fort Worth, TX), a division of Textron. He leads the flight technology organization of about 180 people, and is also in charge of the flight simulation lab.

"Flight technology involves sciences like aerodynamics, stability and control, flight control laws, loads, fatigue, structural dynamics, rotor dynamics and simulation," Agnihotri explains. "We're involved in R&D for all Bell Helicopter's products, and we do a lot of flight simulation for that. We also develop training simulators."

The job sometimes includes international travel; he recently went to Russia to evaluate aerodynamic capabilities there. Some of his projects involve international cooperation, while others, like Bell's work on the presidential helicopter, are limited-access programs.

Agnihotri's BS in aeronautical engineering is from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur, India) and his MS in aeronautical engineering is from MIT (Cambridge, MA). Before joining Bell Helicopter as a principal engineer in 1985 he worked for Beech Aircraft (Wichita, KS) as an aeronautical engineer and group leader.

"If you concentrate on the assignment given to you and do it well, your performance will eventually take you where you need to go," he says. He has several patents, and received the 2004 Textron chairman's award for innovation, but his greatest source of pride is the people in his organization. "We have the biggest percentage of PhD and MS degrees in the company," he says. "I am very lucky to lead such a strong team."

Dana Jackson leads software development at GD C4

Dana Jackson.

"My success has been driven by hard work and a passion for delivering excellence," says Dana Jackson, engineering project leader at General Dynamics C4 Systems (Scottsdale, AZ). Jackson works in the Huntsville, AL facility, where her team is responsible for software development and software/hardware integration for the tactical airspace integration system (TAIS). She has to meet budgetary and scheduling goals for the project, and also manages company engineers at Fort Hood, TX.

During TAIS deployment, the team provides engineering support to soldiers on the battlefield. The system is used by ground-based soldiers who manage the airspace by monitoring an air picture to resolve any battle-space conflicts.

Jackson received a BSEE from Prairie View A&M University (Prairie View, TX) in 1991. She started with Motorola, working on a variety of defense-oriented projects including the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (J-STARS). In 2001 General Dynamics bought Motorola's integrated information systems group, of which Jackson was a part.

Although she began her career in hardware, Jackson transitioned to a software team after taking courses at Motorola University. "I picked up the necessary skills and was placed on the TAIS team working in software integration," she explains. She was also put in charge of the Fort Hood engineers who supported the software integration and testing of TAIS.

When she moved into her project leader job in 2004, she took what she'd learned at Fort Hood with her. She feels her Fort Hood experience gives her valuable insight into how soldiers use the systems in the field.

Operation Desert Storm was in full swing when Jackson graduated from Prairie View. She chose a career in defense because she hoped to be able to influence the success of soldiers on the battlefield.

Today she's still passionate about providing the best possible technology for war fighters. She's also interested in teaching and mentoring the folks on her team.

"At Fort Hood I interviewed and hired an engineer who had great potential but no experience on the system in question. I took him under my wing, and today he's a leader in Huntsville," she notes proudly.

D/C

Laurel McKee Ranger is a freelance business writer headquartered in Randolph, NJ

Back to Top