At a time when federal
budget cuts are reshaping the nation’s aerospace industry, a far
different makeover is under way in the executive suites of some of the
country’s biggest defense contractors.
Lockheed Martin, the
world’s largest defense firm, announced this month that electronics whiz
Marillyn A. Hewson would become chief executive — the first woman to
take on that role at the company.
It was an announcement
that might have drawn much greater attention from the nation’s defense
establishment in Washington if it hadn’t come the same day CIA Director
David Petraeus suddenly resigned amid headline-rich reports of an
extramarital affair.
After all, no aerospace
firm so large — or influential — had ever been run by a woman. Hewson’s
promotion followed the summer announcement that Phebe Novakovic would
take over as chief executive at General Dynamics, the nation’s
fifth-largest defense firm, in Fairfax, Va.
Both take over the top
posts Jan. 1, as female engineers, scientists and managers who joined
the industry during the Cold War are rising to prominence in a staid
industry long dominated by men. Although women have climbed to the top
of other industries for decades, aerospace has gone without women at the
top until recent years.
“The ascension of women
like Marillyn Hewson and Phebe Novakovic to the top of the corporate
ladder suggests that while the glass ceiling in aerospace and defense
may not have been entirely shattered, it’s certainly become more
transparent,” said Marion Blakey, chief executive of the Aerospace
Industries Association trade group.
Come Jan. 1, there will
be a record 21 women who serve as chief executives of firms on the
Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest public companies, including
Hewson and Novakovic.
Deborah Soon, senior vice
president of strategy at Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that tracks
the progress of women in the business world, said there is still a long
way from parity. “We look forward to the day when a woman leading an
aerospace company is no longer news,” she said.
Other women in the
industry are rocketing to the top as well. By next year, six women will
sit on aerospace giant Northrop Grumman’s 14-member senior management
team. This month, Boeing shook up its executive ranks and named seven
people to leadership roles — five of whom were women.
It’s a big shift from the
boy’s club culture that once pervaded the aerospace business after
World War II, said industry pioneer Simon Ramo, now 99. “At the time,
for all practical purposes, prejudice against women was supreme,” said
Ramo, co-founder of former aerospace giant TRW, now part of Northrop.
“Things have definitely changed.”
A main reason for the
male predominance and evolving shift, experts say, is that most
aerospace leaders have risen through the science and engineering ranks,
which has been populated mostly by men. According to the National
Science Foundation’s most recent data, women make up about 27 percent of
the 4.9 million people working in science and engineering. In 1993,
women made up 22 percent of the 3.2 million people in those fields.
Industry experts do not
expect a dramatic change in the way the companies are run. Especially at
a time when U.S. military spending — which grew at double-digit
percentage rates after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — is
expected to decline $487 billion in the next decade.
“Although the
demographics are shifting, the basic behavior of the industry will
largely remain the same,” said Loren Thompson, a defense-policy analyst
with the Lexington Institute. “The metrics by which the modern defense
industry is judged are sales numbers. That’s not going to change whether
the chief executive is a man or a woman.”
The promotions of these
new top executives have been greeted with enthusiasm and a bit of
curiosity. But no group seems more pleased than other female executives
who now see one of their own running the place.
“I do believe women’s
roles have shifted significantly in the more than three decades that I
have been in aerospace,” said Lillian Ryals, vice president of the Mitre
Corp., a nonprofit government contractor. “It is not just our numbers
that have grown, but also our reach and influence across the sector,
from the civil aerospace industry to our ranks on the military side,
from aviation to space.”
Lockheed’s Hewson, 58,
built her reputation in a variety of business sectors. In her most
recent assignment, she made the company’s sprawling electronic systems
business the most profitable unit for Lockheed, better known for
building fighter jets, Navy warships and spy satellites.
Soon, she will take
charge of a company that employs 120,000 people worldwide, about 25
percent of whom are women. “Regardless of gender, each of us brings our
unique perspective and collection of experiences to our roles and
contributes to the success of the organization,” she said.
General Dynamics’
Novakovic, 55, previously oversaw the company’s marine systems group,
which includes the sprawling ship building operations Bath Iron Works in
Maine and NASSCO in San Diego.
Until now, Linda Hudson,
62, has been the most powerful woman in the global defense industry.
Dubbed the “first lady of defense” by Washingtonian magazine, she was
named to head the U.S. unit of British military contractor BAE Systems
Inc. in 2009.
“I grew up in Central
Florida in the middle of the ‘space race,’ watching the Mercury, Gemini
and Apollo launches from my yard, literally,” Hudson said. “At the time,
there were no women in the space program. Thankfully, one of my junior
high teachers introduced me to engineering. Fortunate for me, I was very
good at math and science. That was when I decided if I couldn’t fly jet
airplanes, I could design them.”
Hudson welcomed the newcomers to the top ranks. But there is still work to be done, she said.
“As more women rise
through the ranks, I believe the path will become less intimidating for
others,” Hudson said. “I hope my success in this once male-dominated
field and role, and the success of my counterparts, will influence women
to pursue their dreams of a career in this field.”
Although women have
played a major role in aerospace since Amelia Earhart in 1930s — and
later in the World War II effort, building aircraft — there was little
advancement into management.
Amid the Cold War
buildup, Southern California’s aerospace industry was sharply criticized
by a congressional committee for failing to hire and promote more women
and minorities. A 1989 U.S. Government Accountability Office report
found “men predominated in the aerospace industry in most job
categories.”
Nan Bouchard, 53, vice
president and general manager of Boeing Defense Systems Program
Management, remembers working at Boeing’s Santa Susana Mountains test
facilities in Simi Valley, Calif., around that time.
The shop “only had men’s
rooms so you had to go to a different building,” she said. “I also
remember having customers in the late ’80s who remarked they had never
encountered a female engineering manager before. Of course, they would
have encountered many since then.”
Source: http://seattletimes.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment