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More Hiring is Expected in Aerospace & Defense

By Heidi Russell Rafferty
Contributing Editor

Engineers and IT pros in aerospace will see more hiring this year, says David Napier, research director of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA, Arlington, VA). That's true, he maintains, even though the industry experienced a fifty-year low in employment in 2004.

The two main markets for aerospace, government/defense and commercial, "are becoming strong or already at strong levels," Napier says. "That will translate into employment numbers."

Boeing (Seattle, WA) is hiring, for one. The company announced its new 7E7 at the end of 2003 and is working up orders now. "There will be front-end work by engineers and drafters and a great need for those types of workers," Napier says. "I expect this upturn to climb up and stay there."

The government defense arena has been "humming for a number of years," Napier notes. The impact of defense work extends even beyond the aerospace sector. Even though Congress is expected to hold back on some defense spending this year, the long-term nature of most defense contracts means that jobs should remain strong and steady.

AERO SALES ARE VERY GOOD
While aerospace employment remained low last year, sales were building momentum. According to the AIA's year-end forecast, the U.S. aerospace industry generated $161 billion in sales in 2004, up 8 percent from 2003. Profits rose to an estimated $10 billion, the highest in five years.

This year's aerospace industry sales are expected to grow to $173 billion, up 7.5 percent from last year. A lot of that is Department of Defense (DOD) aerospace purchases, now entering their seventh year of growth. Commercial transport sales should begin recovery in earnest.

The commercial market took a beating post-9/11. Now it's coming off the dip and starting up the cycle. "Both Airbus and Boeing are predicting more planes in 2005, and I think 2006 is going to be a pretty robust year. This sector is entering a growth phase," Napier says.

R&D RECOVERY
Scientists and engineers in aerospace R&D are seeing hiring improvements after a long downward spiral, Napier adds. In 2003 their number rose to 32,500, some 3 percent of the total aerospace workforce. "I think there are indications of continuing growth for these types of workers," Napier says.

One indicator is a growing trend to make things more electronically compatible. "We're packing more systems into planes to fine-tune engine fuel consumption. That creates quite a demand for the people who do the electronics of a plane."

Here's a look at aerospace and defense companies' hiring plans for the year, and the stories of some of their diverse engineers and IT pros.

ARINC SEEKS EXPERIENCED PROS AND JUNIORS
ARINC Inc (Annapolis, MD), the former Aeronautical Radio Inc, is a company owned by the airlines. It turned seventy-five this year. ARINC provides communications and systems engineering solutions for aviation, airports, defense, government and transportation.

The company expects to hire more than 500 engineers and IT pros this year, says Greg Ford, director of human resources for HQ and the northeast region. The company offers technical folks the chance to tackle a variety of responsibilities they might not achieve at larger firms, he notes.

"We're a matrix organization where you get to do a lot of neat stuff. If you're willing to learn and work smart, you'll be able to work on cutting-edge technology with a lot of different groups."

ARINC hires new engineers, mostly EEs, with solid internship experience, and junior engineers with a few years experience, Ford says. He's looking for engineers who know RF, GPS and navigation systems, folks who understand military hardware and software, and some IT pros.

A lot of the company's hiring decisions are contract-driven, Ford notes. When a contract is complete, the employee can usually transfer to another contract.

To recruit diverse candidates, ARINC participates in the Black Engineer of the Year conference (Baltimore, MD) every year, and has attended SWE conferences and other appropriate job fairs. To build a pipeline, the company connects with high school and college students. "It's neat to see the spark in the kids' eyes when they talk to us," Ford says. "They get really excited about engineering careers."

On the job, groups like ARINC Women in Leadership and ARINC Link, for new managers, are available. ARINC University offers online and classroom training programs as well as career counseling.

Adelle Pierce joined ARINC in 1987, soon after she graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in aerospace engineering. Today she's VP of defense systems engineering, overseeing a staff of 800 in locations across the U.S.

Pierce grew up in a Navy family. She was introduced to defense contracting through a summer job for the Navy at the Patuxent River, MD Naval Air Station, where she worked with other engineers evaluating tactical aircraft and weapons systems.

She started at ARINC as a systems engineer, analyzing helicopter mods. In 1989 she transferred to an ARINC office in Warner Robins, GA, where she supported the C130 aircraft. After a few years she transferred back to Maryland, where the Patuxent River office was poised for growth.

"At the time, there were only a handful of people in that office, but we had just won a contract and I saw an opportunity to get in on the ground floor," she explains. Five years later the office had expanded to nearly 100 employees.

As the organization grew Pierce was promoted to unit manager, senior manager and then director, overseeing ops at Patuxent River and Charleston, SC. "I made decisions relative to staffing, new business opportunities, which proposals we would pursue and teaming with other companies," she says.

Her next post was staff VP for ARINC's Navy engineering division, which included offices in Patuxent River, Charleston, Panama City Beach, FL and San Diego, CA, plus a department supporting the Coast Guard's Deepwater fleet upgrade program.

In February 2004 Pierce became VP of defense systems engineering, and, two months later, a corporate officer. Her defense systems engineering business unit provides complex engineering solutions to Navy organizations, Army programs and classified programs, as well as GPS-related businesses.

ARINC supported her all the way, Pierce says. Early in her career she was identified as someone with management potential, and invited to be part of several leadership programs. In 2000 she participated in an executive development program through the University of Maryland.

RAYTHEON MISSILE SYSTEMS NEEDS 500 THIS YEAR
Raytheon Missile Systems (Tucson, AZ), a unit of Raytheon Corp (Waltham, MA), expects to hire 500 new engineers, ranging from recent grads to highly experienced folks, says Noreen R. Nelson, director of staffing. They'll work in all company areas, including defense and government electronics, space, IT, tech services, business aviation and special-mission aircraft.

The company has a broad range of openings including software, EE, ME and IT, plus very specialized work in areas like thermal imaging, production engineering and test equipment engineering, Nelson points out. Many jobs require a security clearance or the ability to obtain one.

Raytheon Missile System's employee resource groups, Nelson notes, place special emphasis on career development. The company offers full tuition reimbursement as well as extensive internal education and training programs.

At Raytheon Missile Systems, Gaynelle Swann is mission solutions manager for the precision engagement strategic business area. Her job involves linking sensors, weapons and command and control to meet war-fighter needs.

"Precision engagement is a unique opportunity for me, because I'm exposed to the breadth of systems engineering across this very large corporation," Swann explains. "It's vital to interface with customers and translate their needs into requirements that determine design and technical development."

Raytheon Missile Systems designs, develops and produces systems for critical requirements, including air-to-air, strike, naval weapons systems, land combat missiles, guided projectiles, exo-atmospheric kill vehicles and directed-energy weapons.

Swann joined Raytheon in 1999 as a senior systems engineer. She led multi-discipline teams in missile systems performance analysis, failure analysis, risk management and quality improvement for the Sparrow missile, and provided technical direction for the Sparrow program office in Japan.

In 2001 she became systems engineering section manager and then principal systems engineer. She began as mission solutions manager in 2003.

Swann initially wanted to be a lawyer, but when she was in high school her father persuaded her and her twin sister to participate in a two-week "minority introduction to engineering" (MITE) program at Tuskegee University (Tuskegee, AL). It was a highly persuasive program: Swann went on to study EE at Tuskegee and her sister became an ME.

When she graduated in 1991 Swann won a GEM Fellowship. She used it to get her 1993 MSEE at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Her first job was at the Honeywell facility in Plymouth, MN, where she researched advanced communications and control systems development. Then she moved to Ford Motor Co (Dearborn, MI) to implement new processes and practices for several vehicle programs.

She also served as Ford's rep to a Tuskegee forum where she networked with Dr Lynne Bracker of Raytheon. Bracker suggested that Swann should look into Raytheon's Missile Systems facility in Tucson. It was a good tip; Swann moved there in 1999.

Swann notes that she's dedicated to recruiting and retaining minorities and women in defense. She's president of the Raytheon Black Employees Network in Tucson, and also serves on the diversity council subcommittee for Raytheon Missile Systems and is a member of the Raytheon Women's Network.

She's on the executive board of the Tuskegee University National Alumni Association and a member of the Tuskegee Business and Industry Cluster. She also belongs to the International Council of Systems Engineers and NSBE Alumni.

Swann works in the women's leadership program of the Tucson YWCA and its TechGYRLs project. She has received a Women of Color in Government and Defense Technology award for educational leadership and the Women on the Move award of the Tucson YWCA.

GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 SYSTEMS SEEKS DEFENSE-SAVVY PROS
General Dynamics C4 Systems (Scottsdale, AZ) requires "the best" technology pros, with experience and background in DOD initiatives, says spokesperson Fran Jacques.

"The DOD is transforming the way our homeland is protected," Jacques says. "We design communications systems so war fighters can make the best decisions on the battlefield."

General Dynamics C4 Systems is an integrator of secure communication and information systems and technology, with more than 7,500 employees worldwide. Its specialties are command and control, communications networking, and computing and information assurance for defense, government and commercial customers in the U.S. and abroad.

The company expects to have 400 engineering openings this year. Most positions require security clearance or the ability to obtain one. Employees must be U.S. citizens and usually need advanced degrees.

Software systems engineers are most in demand this year, Jacques says. Communications, RF, software, digital design and mechanical engineers are also needed. The company recruits at SHPE, NSBE, AISES, MAES and HENAAC, and posts jobs on diversity-oriented websites.

Delvin Nelson's first language is Navajo, and he's the first college grad in his family. At General Dynamics C4 Systems Nelson is an IT security engineer, part of a four-person team that manages the company's cyber security systems.

When he joined the corporation in 1995, Nelson's first job was to help his boss set up an information security program. Both documentation and hands-on work were required to install anti-virus and access control software. "Information security was a fairly new field, and hardly anyone was thinking of it. I was lucky to get on board when it was just starting," he says.

Things have changed a lot since then. Nelson is now a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, holds a Firewall Analyst certification, and is a member of the Sonoran Desert Security Users Group.

He begins his day by monitoring anti-virus activity. He responds to employee concerns and often helps with troubleshooting. But the real bulk of his work involves some ten to fifteen projects each year.

One of his current projects is a study of new intrusion-detection system software. Recently he developed a process for vulnerability assessment scanning, and after months of work testing and selecting a good tool, he now has to teach people how to use it.
"You have to know how the tool works and how to use it to protect operating systems and applications," Nelson says. Fortunately, he likes to learn about new technologies.

Nelson grew up in Rock Springs, NM, on the Checkerboard region of the Navajo nation. "I was one of the few kids whose parents encouraged learning both Navajo and English," he says.

He graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1989 with a BA in psychology, and went to work as a career counselor with the Navajo Nation.

But in college he'd been bitten by the IT bug. Three years later he entered an MBA program at the University of Arizona, selecting management and policy along with MIS as his concentrations.

He graduated in 1995 and started work at a Motorola facility in Scottsdale, AZ. General Dynamics acquired the plant in 2001 and went on with its DOD work, and Nelson has continued to hone his info security skills there.

THE AEROSPACE CORP NEEDS MANY DISCIPLINES
The national security mission of The Aerospace Corp (El Segundo, CA) gives employees the sense that they're contributing to an important effort, says HR representative Elaine Harrell. The company is currently recruiting for a number of engineering requirements.

"We operate a federally funded R&D center, so there are ceilings on the number of people we can hire. But we've seen incremental increases in our staff," Harrell notes. The corporation has many focuses that support its
core space mission, she points out. It's looking for ChEs, MEs, EEs, materials scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, aeronautical engineers, and people with training in space systems, communications systems, systems engineering, astrophysics and atmospheric science, physics, optics, telecom and more. U.S. citizenship is required, and most positions require security clearances. Most Aerospace Corp labs are hiring at the PhD level, but in most cases an MS and sometimes a BS is fine.

Aerospace Corp recruits through NSBE, SHPE, MAES, SWE and disabilities groups, as well as many colleges. It is active in SWE, the California Minority Engineering Program, and local MEPs at five nearby universities.

New employees will find a number of affinity groups to welcome them, Harrell notes. They are the Aerospace Women's Committee, the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Advisory Council, the Totally Adaptable Caucus, LAMBDA, and Asian American and vets groups.

The Aerospace Corp works closely with the Air Force to do assessments and design evaluations. One of its roles is providing independent assessments of contractors' work. That's the specialty of Terita Norton.

Norton is an EE and a member of tech staff in the digital and integrated circuit electronics department at Aerospace. She started as a summer intern while she was a junior at Florida State University, and continued her internships through her grad study years under a GEM fellowship. When she received her MSEE in 2002 she segued into a full-time position.

Norton was always interested in aerospace. Growing up in central Florida, she would stand outdoors to catch glimpses of the shuttles going up. So when she applied to GEM, "I told them of my interest, and they matched me up with the Aerospace Corp," she says.

She began in hardware design, helping senior-level engineers. Each year of the internship got more intense, she says. "Each summer I worked on a different project and learned more about microelectronics."

Today she's supporting two or three projects at a time. She may be evaluating a design from a contractor, writing code for a test bench, doing schematic capture or using a CAD tool.

One of the big challenges of her job is time, she says. "I have to manage my time wisely because I support so many projects."

Norton participates in the Aerospace Black Caucus, one of the company's affinity groups, and is a member of the company's track team, the Meteors. She's also a regional officer of NSBE, and helps with mentoring and college prep workshops for high school students in her area.

"We're trying to develop a robotics team," she reveals. Techies from Aerospace and the Air Force are helping with that.

NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP: MORE CONTRACTS FROM SEA TO SPACE
Hiring of engineers and IT folks has been brisk at Northrop Grumman Corp (Los Angeles, CA) for several years now. The outlook for 2005 continues to be "pretty impressive," says Sandra Evers-Manly, VP of ethics and diversity. "We have more opportunities for interested applicants, in everything from sea to space to IT," she notes.

Northrop Grumman is a global defense company that provides products and services in systems integration, defense electronics, IT and advanced aircraft, shipbuilding and space technology. As a result, U.S. citizenship is a core requirement for employment and security clearances are usually needed.

The company recruits through NSBE, AISES, SWE, SHPE and a variety of other diversity- and technology-focused conferences. Diversity is a top priority, Evers-Manly says. "We definitely value diversity and inclusion. Northrop Grumman is a good citizen, very active in our communities."

The company's employee network groups help new folks assimilate and also get involved in recruiting. Northrop Grumman has groups for gays and lesbians, African Americans, Hispanics, women and new employees.

Tamra Johnson is one of a generation of young engineers at Northrop Grumman's space technology sector (Redondo Beach, CA). Folks like Johnson are part of NASA's new vision for space exploration.

Johnson joined the space technology group in 2001. Today she's a team leader in the Prometheus 1 project of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL, Pasadena, CA).

Prometheus 1 is an electric propulsion vehicle powered by a nuclear fission reactor. It is designed to explore the planet Jupiter's three ice-covered moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Northrop Grumman was selected last year to work with JPL on a preliminary design. Since then, Johnson has become a team leader on the project.

Johnson's group of about fifteen subsystem technology experts is now studying to see what else the vehicle could be asked to do. "We're trying to come up with a basic vehicle that allows unprecedented science capability," she says.

On a typical day Johnson tracks design parameters on spreadsheets to see how they affect each other. "You have to understand how the technologies and systems impact one another, and get agreement," Johnson says. She also works directly with JPL and other NASA centers.

Johnson was a child when the space shuttle program started up, and was interested right from the beginning. She grew up near San Antonio, TX, and once had the opportunity to see the shuttle go by, ferried on the back of a modified 747 airliner.

She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge, MA) in 2001 with a BS in aeronautics and astronautics and joined Northrop Grumman as a systems engineer in the technology development and chemical propulsion group. She moved to her current job in January 2003.

FRISBY AEROSPACE: SMALL BUT GROWING
Frisby Aerospace (Clemmons, NC) has "seen an up-tick in the aerospace market compared with the last couple of years," says Kevin Clark, director of engineering. Last year the company completed a $10 million state-of-the-art engineering development and test center.

Right now Frisby has 165 employees at its North Carolina site, thirty-three of them in the engineering department. But Clark has budgeted some new engineering jobs for 2005, and "If we win some of the contracts we've bid on, that number will go up." ME is the primary discipline involved, with some EEs and aerospace engineers.

Frisby supplies actuators, valves, pumps, motors and reservoirs to the U.S. government, aircraft manufacturers and almost every major airline. It also contracts for maintenance, repair and overhaul of its products. It is part of the Triumph Group (Wayne, PA), and "We work with our sister companies to design complete aircraft systems," Clark notes.

"We're a fairly small company, but we welcome intelligent people of any variety."

PRATT & WHITNEY SEEKS EXPERIENCED TECHIES
Pratt & Whitney (P&W, East Hartford, CT) is "always looking for skilled engineers who can make an immediate contribution," says Clint Wallace of P&W's office of retention and diversity.

P&W is a division of United Technologies (UTC, Hartford, CT). It manufactures engines for nearly half the world's commercial airline fleet, and its military engines power Air Force fighters. The same kind of gas-turbine engines are also supplied for power generation.

"We have a variety of opportunities for engineers with aerospace experience to work on current and future technologies in commercial or military applications," Wallace says.

The work is in areas like acoustics, aerodynamics, controls, design, manufacturing, materials, radar, structures, systems, test/validation and welding. Once in, growth and development opportunities are ongoing. Wallace points to career development workshops, coaching, a self-initiated mentoring process and individual development planning, all tools that help employees develop their careers.

Today William Ampofo manages enterprise organizational readiness and communications in P&W's IT department. His career at P&W has given him the opportunity to bring his strong financial background into IT and other operations both home and abroad.

"I'm a young guy, just past that thirty-year milestone, and I've done a lot in the time I've been here," he says.

Right now Ampofo is tying up a project he started in 1999: migrating all the company's business systems, in all its manufacturing module centers, to SAP software. "Ancillary areas are completed, and now we're working on the core of our business," he explains.

One of his jobs is making everybody, from senior VPs to general managers to their staff members, comfortable with the software. "I make sure there are no surprises once we deploy," he declares.

Ampofo graduated from Adelphi University (Garden City, NY) in 1996 with a BS in finance. He spent his college summers as an Inroads intern at Otis Elevator (Farmington, CT), another UTC business.

On graduation, Ampofo joined P&W's two-year financial leadership program. He worked as a financial lead in Middletown, CT and West Palm Beach, FL. He was also the financial controls manager for a joint-venture liquid-fuel rocket program based in Moscow, Russia.

In 1998 he came back to Connecticut to finish his rotation program. When he finished in August, a company exec invited Ampofo to join his SAP deployment project. "I took it as a challenge," Ampofo says.

In 1999 Ampofo went to Singapore, where he handled training and change management issues at a jet engine repair facility, a joint venture of P&W and Singapore Airlines. "We had to integrate the facility, so why not integrate it with the SAP solution?" he notes.

Next, this one-person flying force hit Washington, DC, to help launch an IT venture. The venture eventually closed down, but while he was there Ampofo enrolled in an executive MBA program at George Washington University. He graduated in May 2003.

That October he was brought back to Connecticut to finish up the SAP project he'd launched four years earlier. "Looking at my career objectives, it was the right time to transition back," he says. "I love the company and enjoy it and definitely want to develop my career here."

REMEC DEFENSE & SPACE INC.
At REMEC Defense & Space Inc (San Diego, CA), EE/ChE Zhu sometimes sees her projects move from the computer to finished products within a few months. "You're exposed to all different areas of design very fast," she says. "You have to learn a lot of different kinds of circuits, from DC to millimeter wave."

REMEC designs, develops and manufactures RF, micowave and millimeter wave products for space, electronic warfare, radar, missile and communication/navigation applications. Its products include MMICs, filters, amplifiers, switches, multipliers, transmit/receive modules and integrated microwave assemblies.

Zhu is the only female EE in her R&D department. She's currently working with other engineers on a transceiver that will help a missile find its target.

The project is still in the early prototype phase. "We start with an initial design and test it out. If it doesn't meet the specifications we investigate the problem and continue to improve the design," she says.

In the early stages of a project she'll spend a lot of time doing computer simulation. In the test phase she may be in the lab all day for weeks or months.

When she was sixteen Zhu and her family left China for the U.S., where her father took up managerial duties at a computer company. She became a U.S. citizen in 1997, and graduated from MIT in 1999 with both a BS and an MS in EE and ChE.

Her first job was in Lucent Technologies' Holmdel, NJ facility as an EE in the optic networking group. The next year she joined Agilent Technologies' Santa Rosa, CA facility to work on frequency reference board design for the spectrum analyzer group.

She moved to REMEC in 2003, where she's very happy with the work she's doing. The test phase is particularly interesting to her. "If it always worked the first time, you wouldn't learn as much," she says. "It's good to get all the problems out of the way at an early stage."

ITT INDUSTRIES
Roosevelt Cobb started at ITT Industries (White Plains, NY) as a material control planner in 1983. Today he's a data center security admin for ITT's Aerospace/Communications division (Ft Wayne, IN), maintaining the security of the company's records at locations in Indiana, New Jersey, California and the United Kingdom. "It involves people that use the AS/400 system; there could be as many as 4,500," Cobb says.

He's responsible for disaster recovery testing, as well as for information system standards and procedures the company must follow per government regulations. "I have to work with auditors internally and externally to make sure the controls are in place for the users as well as the company," Cobb says.

Cobb also works with the user community, handling problems through the security admin group. "I'm given four or five problems a day," he says. "I check the systems and work with programmers to get the problems resolved."

Cobb comes from Vienna, GA. He graduated from Fort Valley State University (Fort Valley, GA) in 1970 with a BA in business admin and a concentration in management.

His first job was with General Foods Corp as a production supervisor in its Kankakee, IL facility. The next year he was drafted into the Army and served in Germany and Belgium as a military policeman.

After his discharge in 1972 he went to work in material control at General Electric's Fort Wayne, IN facility. In 1983 he joined ITT's material control operations.

Six years later the company started converting its manual systems to computer. Material control was part of a data management system called "ARMS," and Cobb became the ARMS admin, responsible for user security.

He learned everything through on-the-job training. "I started out making sure that users had access to the systems they needed," managing user IDs and passwords. This evolved into the AS/400 system, which the company continues to use today.

GENERAL DYNAMICS ADVANCED INFORMATION SYSTEMS
At General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (Chantilly, VA), Delvin King, a senior lead engineer, combines strong research skills with EE expertise to help clients solve complex technical issues.

"It's almost like being a researcher, but you're solving real-world problems today," says King, who is the senior lead engineer in the company's surveillance and reconnaissance unit.

General Dynamics Advanced Info Systems helps government and commercial clients with mission solutions in command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

King can't mention any specifics about his classified work. But he can reveal that a great deal of his time is spent in studies to check the feasibility of what customers are trying to do.

King grew up in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and came to the mainland for college in 1981. He received a BS in engineering and technology from Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA) in 1985 and an MSEE from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1987. He has a wife and two young daughters.

"Initially I was thinking of going back to the Virgin Islands, but the opportunities in research-oriented engineering are on the mainland," he says.

So he became a member of tech staff at Tasc Inc (Chantilly, VA), doing systems engineering in communications and signal processing for government intelligence. His work involved analytical studies, field experiments, detailed computer modeling and simulation.

By the time he left, sixteen years later, he was deep into development initiatives like building simulators and training satellite operators. He also worked closely with contractors, monitoring systems development and doing independent performance verification for the government.

In 2003 King joined General Dynamics, doing similar work in an advisory position. He uses his EE training all the time. "Working here lets me solve difficult problems and work on missions that protect my country," he says. View Article Source:
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