- Thanks everybody, welcome
back to this next session
of the careers in aviation panel.
And I've already introduced
myself a couple times.
I'm professor Bill Crossley
and I'm the head here
in Aeronautics and Astronautics.
And I'm gonna introduce
our panel really quick.
We've sent them a couple
questions in advance.
I'll try to ask a couple
interesting questions.
And I was actually
thinking, I was just saying
well the panelists this morning asked,
and the panelists this morning asked,
'cause she does just a great job.
So hopefully you will be
patient with me on my questions.
I'm not nearly that savvy on this.
So we tried to sit in order so that
the PowerPoint above us is
like a virtual name tag,
in case you do have a question
for one of us specifically.
So sitting right immediately next to me is
Captain Margie Freeman, she's
a pilot for United Airlines.
She flies the Boeing 767 and she's
based up at O'Hare in Chicago.
She's flown for 30 years,
she's got ratings in the 727,
which doesn't fly anymore,
737, 757, and 767,
and flies both internationally
and domestically.
She graduated from the
University of Illinois
in their professional
pilot program in 1984.
And you'll notice we
have a couple members of
the panel who are members of the 99s,
so she's a member of the
Experiment Aviation Association,
Women in Aviation and the
99s, all organizations
are recognized and
celebrate women in aviation.
She's got her own Cessna 172, and a 340.
- I flew it here this morning.
- So she flew here, so
you fly for your job,
and then you fly for a
hobby, and then you sleep.
- Sometimes.
- Sometimes okay (laughing) very good.
Well welcome, thank you.
Sitting next to, I guess it's two over,
I was gonna say to my left,
but that's your right.
And then I got confused,
and so I apologize.
Sitting next to Margie
is Katherine Johnson.
She's a product engineer
with the Boeing Company.
She's the project
engineer and team lead for
the Hornet Health Assessment
and Readiness tool,
like which all good things
has an acronym, it's HHART.
I guess the second H is
silent, it's H H A R T.
(audience laughing)
Some people can put it
a (mimics guttural H)
I don't know that I can.
It's like when I try to speak Dutch
when I visit the Netherlands, I can't.
Yes so if you're Dutch you
could help me pronounce it.
Anyway, she's supporting the Boeing
defense systems F-18 program.
And now I gotta keep my
glasses on so I can read them.
So she does that, enhances
aircraft system health
by utilizing data and
engineering knowledge
to provide timely enhanced
troubleshooting guidance
to improve aircraft readiness,
and aircraft safety.
So this is one of the
things ties to another
initiative here at
Purdue, our data science.
So how does data science fit engineering?
We might have some questions
for Kathryn about that.
She was on the F-22
reliability maintainability
team before that, and she's had a couple
of different assignments,
almost all at Boeing
it looks like, and all in Boeing defense.
And she earned her degree in Aero
and Astro here at Purdue University.
Boiler up right?
Then next to her is Jen Watson Perez.
So Jen is the global technical capability
development leader at GE Aviation.
She's responsible for the technical growth
and development of the
nearly 8,000 engineers
around the globe who work
for GE aviation, so that's
a pretty big responsibility,
pretty big reach for Jen.
This includes something that, if you get
a chance later, you can talk to her about
the Edison Engineering
Development Program.
That's an outstanding opportunity
if you want to work for
a gas turbine engine
company, or anywhere at GE.
But Jen's at the gas turbine
part of the aviation.
It's an outstanding opportunity for young
technical excellent leader development.
She started that at is a co op
while attending here Purdue.
And then she spent time
in the engineering,
sorry Edison engineering
development program
creating aerothermal cycle
models of gas turbine engines.
So she might have done well
on professor Histor's test.
I don't know if Beth did so well but.
She's been the performance, sorry,
became the manager of the
Transient Performance Team.
So she was creating and
validating state of the art
cycle models for gas turbine engines.
And that role got her
excited about training
and helping develop other
engineering leaders.
She graduated from
Purdue with a bachelor's
degree in aero and astro, she
was a member of Phi Sigma Rho,
co-captain of the national championship
Rube Goldberg Team, and many of you here
are familiar with our Space Day.
She was one of our directors
for Purdue Space Day.
So welcome Jen.
Then to Jen's left is Margot Wint.
Margot works at Ben's Aviation,
where she's been an assistant manager of
a small airport in Michigan for 10 years,
so another important part
of the aerospace business.
We always joke that takeoff is optional,
landing is mandatory,
and we'd like to land
at the airport, that's
the preferred option.
She's been a test Proctor
for FAA knowledge tests.
She's an instrument rated private
pilot, single engine land,
and has flown more than 885 hours,
and she's been an active member of the 99s
for 14 years, has held offices at
the chapter and North
Central Section staff.
Air racing is one of her
passions since she's competed
in several, including the Airways Classic,
which some of our
students have competed in.
And then if you were here
earlier this morning,
you already heard the
Honorable Sue Peyton's bio.
But I want to flip and make
sure in case you hadn't.
So Sue Payton, she's listed
this way and it's true.
If you get the chance to talk with her
you see all these things
are true very quickly.
Change agent, acquisition expert,
innovative industry
leader, and public servant.
And she's worked for over
37 years, continued success
in senior industry and
government positions
with the military
services, defense agencies,
coalition partners, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff,
the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
intelligence community, Congress,
universities like Purdue, and the media.
She's the former Assistant Secretary
of the Air Force for acquisition,
and former Deputy
Undersecretary of Defense,
and currently is the
President at SCI Aerospace.
So thanks for joining us on
the panel, Sue, appreciate it.
So what we did this morning is right away
the panelists started asking
a couple of questions.
I wanted to ask something,
and I thought this
was interesting, a few
years ago that AIAA,
the American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics,
one of our big professional societies,
ran a campaign that was
called When do you Know?
And the idea behind that
was to celebrate careers
in aerospace, and so I thought
I would start our panel,
we sent them a bunch of
questions and things.
This one wasn't on it.
But I think this one's really relevant.
When did you know, when did you know
you were going to do
what you're doing today?
I'll just go, I was
gonna stay left to right.
And I guess that works 'cause it's
my left, so let's start with you.
- I knew from a very early age,
a young girl, this is what I wanted to do.
But at the time you didn't tell anybody,
because you risked being dismissed.
But it turned out, and persevered.
So I knew at a very
young age, grade school.
- [Bill] What about you Katherine.
- I would echo that, I
think I was about five.
I wanted to be an astronaut, so that was--
- [Margie] No, I was
gonna be the astronaut.
- There it is, see yeah.
- [Bill] If you talk to Beth,
you can all be astronauts.
- Exactly right, it can happen.
Yeah, I wanted to be an astronaut.
I found out when we had returned back
from a family vacation to Disney World.
I could have cared less about Mickey,
I loved Kennedy Space
Center, at five years old.
My dad was not thrilled.
But at early age I always loved
rocket space travel, but
it kind of evolved into
a love just for flight in general.
And that's kind of I
kept pursuing that path.
- [Bill] Outstanding, Jen?
- For me I was always
interested in planes,
and my dad was an engineer,
so I figured I would go into engineering.
But then it must have been the summer
after my sophomore year in high school.
I went to high school locally here,
and I spent a week out at
the airport doing a camp,
essentially, where we built
a balsa wood airplane,
and put it in the wind tunnel,
and cranked it up to
see the wings break off.
And I remember that
when my dad picked me up
at the end of the day,
I was there all day,
I would just be
overflowing with excitement
about how much fun I had, and it was like
is this what it's like
when you go to work?
And he was like if you're lucky.
And so at that point I knew,
okay I'm gonna do aero.
It was just so cool for me.
- [Bill] Let's go on
down the line, Margot.
- Mine was a little bit later.
I kind of had a life
changing event in my life,
and said I think I'll do
what I want to do now,
instead of what everybody
else expects me to do.
So I didn't even start flying
until I was in my 40's.
And now I race, and do most
anything aviation related.
- [Bill] Outstanding, Sue what about you?
You came at it a little bit this morning.
- No, I'm a total misfit to knowing
anything about where I
was gonna be in 40 years.
Started out as a teacher, loved coaching.
All I ever wanted to
do was teach and coach.
And then this guy I married ripped me
out of my teaching position
and moved me to California.
And again I was sitting on the couch,
and Ronnie Reagan said
if you're unemployed,
go get into data processing,
learn about computers.
And so I would say that
starting in the '82 timeframe
was when I totally did a
complete career change.
And I realized, even
though as a young student
at your age, and in high school even,
I was told I could be a
secretary, a nurse, or a teacher.
So I couldn't type, and I
hated the sight of blood,
so I ended up in teaching, and just
necessity is the mother of invention.
And that's how I sort of ended up
on a totally different career path.
- That's great Sue, there's
all different stories.
I want to just put my little
spin in here just a little bit.
So when I was about four or five I think,
I took my dad to the
Greater Cincinnati Airport
to go on a business trip and marveled
at the airplane that he took off in.
But the job I have now, Head
of the School of Aeronautics
and Astronautics at Purdue
University, what an awesome job.
But I never thought that
I would be in this job.
So what are some of the things that
happened to you from when you knew?
I knew wanted to be an aerospace engineer
when I was five or six,
I'm an aerospace engineer.
But I didn't know I was
gonna be doing this.
So when did you were
gonna be flying airplanes,
or running a major program at Boeing,
or overseeing the development
of thousands of engineers?
Margie?
- So the question is when did I know, or?
- I'm thinking about what
happened along the way.
I'm trying to draw this out,
I'll just being more explicit.
So for students who are
listening and thinking about
okay well, what does my
career path look like?
Some of us picked A, and
we were A the whole time.
I picked A and I did B, and
I did C, and I did seven,
and then I did X, and
eventually I've ended up.
And I'm kind of curious about that path.
So if we can give some examples.
- Well I think, as a child
of the 60's I think I wanted
to be an astronaut, I
was only half kidding.
But pursued more of the
aviation as, just as a kid
going to the airport and
watching family members fly,
and take off on these beautiful machines.
There was really, there were two options.
There was the military,
or the civilian route.
The military didn't have
many options available
for women when I was 18,
and having to choose.
So education, civilian route
there was, that was the path.
So there weren't many
options routes to go for me.
- And so piloting was the
one, and you've been a pilot.
- Oh yeah, I mean once I started flying
at a college airport, I mean just
automatically fell in love with it.
- And that's what we heard, you fly
and you don't even sleep anymore.
- No I don't sleep anymore.
- That's outstanding.
- Well as wanting to be an
astronaut when I was a kid.
I know, I'm glad I sat by you though.
Ignore the order that's
happening up there.
Wanting to be an astronaut,
well you kind of,
I was definitely on
that path you could not,
you could not change my
dream that I wanted to have.
So then you get older and you're like,
okay well how do you make
this dream a reality?
And it was very,
to me it was military
or the civilian route.
And on another family vacation,
my dad was really good
at family vacations with these dreams.
We went to the United
States Naval Academy.
And I said this is it,
this is where I want to go.
Spoiler alert, I went to
Purdue but, I'll get there.
Went to the United States Naval Academy,
fell in love with it, I
had that call to service.
And I wanted to be a fighter pilot.
So that was when I was probably about
10 years old, got to high school age,
said okay how do we make
that dream possible?
So I started applying to the academies
to be a pilot, to be an engineer.
And unfortunately I am blind as a bat,
and they're like no,
you're not going, it's bad.
You don't want to trust
me with, trust me on
the data with a million dollar
jet, not to fly it though.
So unfortunately, it was not in my cards
to be a fighter pilot, and so
I kind of had it except that.
That was a big challenge to overcome.
That had been my dream for the longest,
as long as I could remember.
And so luckily my recruiter
that I had been working with
said let's look at civilian colleges,
let's look at Purdue University.
So I said okay, let's look at it.
I came here for a visit,
obviously Neil Armstrong
came here, so by golly
I want to come here.
And that's kind of, back when
I was a kid wanting to be
an astronaut, was definitely
set on doing that.
And I never would have maybe pictured
that I would have gone into Boeing.
I always thought I would
be career military routed.
But I always did have that
call to service still.
And I have had the lucky
opportunity to work
on defense programs within Boeing.
So in a way I'm still able to
serve, just in other facets.
And it's kind of come full
circle down a different way.
- [Bill] That's awesome, very good.
Jen what about you?
- For me, I've definitely
had people influence,
kind of the twists and
turns through my careers.
When I was a freshman
I knew I wanted to do
the co-op program here at Purdue.
I knew some people older than me who said,
oh if you co up at Delta you can
fly standby for free and travel the world.
So I was like hey that sounds awesome.
So I sat down with Professor Williams,
and I said I want to apply at Delta.
And he he told me if you're gonna apply
at Delta, you should apply at GE.
And I must have had a look on my face like
what are you talking about?
I did not know GE made
aircraft engines at the time.
And so he filled me in that a lot of
what you would do in
a Delta co-op rotation
would be similar to what
you might do at a GE co-op.
So he was the one who introduced me to GE,
and it was completely off my radar.
Then when I got to GE, they
put me in a performance group.
I remember looking at a
cross section and not knowing
where there was metal,
and where there was air.
But then, so this was the
summer after my freshman year.
Then when I came back to
school and I took in ME-200,
and it was like oh this is the stuff
I was working on at
work, and this is so cool
to now get the theory
piece of it behind what my
poor manager probably assumed
I already had under my belt.
So for me that was one turning point.
Another point, now I'm
in this more technical
learning space, and that
also kind of happened
just by talking with a
colleague and a mentor.
I had been itching for a new job.
And I reached out to a friend
and she started selling
this role to me and saying
hey, I have have an opening.
I'm looking for someone
who can contemporize
our technical education, and
I think you'd be great at it.
And I was like no, I'm an engineer.
Like no, that sounds like HR work.
But after we started talking about it,
it really is just a big
engineering problem.
I'm just dealing with people
and their skills or knowledge
versus an aircraft
engine, and it's jet fuel.
So again it was another case where maybe
my career has taken a
turn, but it was really
influenced by a mentor or
someone kind of pushing me
in a direction that maybe I
wasn't really thinking about.
- [Bill] What about you Margot?
- Just like Sue, when I
graduated from high school
you became a teacher,
or nurse, or whatever.
I knew I was never gonna
work in a classroom.
So I did retail and everything,
and my husband is an engineer.
So I'm used to being around engineering.
He is a chemical engineer, sorry.
So went one way, and
after 10 years in retail,
you really want to kill everybody,
workers, customers, you don't care.
And so then I went into wholesale.
And I worked in wholesale
until they called us
all in on a Friday morning
and said guess what?
We have no room for you anymore,
and like 25 of us go in one.
Now I was already taking flying lessons.
The guy at the airport was very nice.
He said would you like to work here,
and I'll trade you working in the office
for airplane time to get
your instrument rating.
So that's how I started, and
I've just kind of stayed.
- [Bill] And persistence there right,
that's hey, I'm gonna I'm
gonna get through this.
I guess resilience is
probably the better word.
I'm gonna get through this, we're gonna--
- Well yeah, but then he ended up selling
that plane and I bought my own.
So I finished all my instrument
rating in my own plane.
- [Bill] Sue, what about you?
- Well I go back to sitting on the couch.
- [Bill] How did you go
from couch to Pentagon?
That wasn't that wasn't the plan,
I don't think anybody plans
that, maybe somebody does.
- It was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride,
it was education, education.
I got a job with Harris Corporation
as an Administrative Assistant.
And that meant I would go for doughnuts,
I would get the conference room ready.
But I wouldn't be allowed
in there for the meetings.
And I wouldn't be allowed in there
to help with the architecture,
or to understand the
interface requirements.
And it just rubbed me the wrong way.
So I jumped in a master's
degree program at USC,
studied pretty hard, because I had
to get a pretty high score on the GRE,
and I had to get A's on
the first four classes,
ended up getting that master's degree in
actually systems technology,
and system acquisition.
And woke up one morning after three years,
and I was still in the same cubicle.
My bosses, they did not
recognize that I was
a different person, than they had hired.
And my husband said to me
one day, well the only way
you're gonna get out of
the cubicle is to either
leave the company, and go
with a different company
now that you have a master's degree,
and you have three years of experience
exactly in what this company needed.
And they were hiring people.
They were hiring people in above me,
who didn't have my knowledge
or a master's degree.
So I created my resume
without my name on it.
I took it in to my boss who
was giving away free dinners
to people who would bring in new folks.
And I said you know sir
I've got the perfect person.
This person has the security clearances,
understands the program,
understands the architecture,
knows the customer, has immense
ability to really contribute.
And he said when can I talk to him?
When can I, bring him in, I
want to talk to him immediately
because we were getting
dinged every three months
on our fee, because we weren't hiring up.
And I said well sir that's me.
Oh I didn't know.
And I said and this resume
is going on the street
in a month, and I wanted to tell you that.
Because it's the high
integrity thing to do.
Tell your boss when you're gonna
go interview with other people.
And he said would you give me a month
to see if I can get you a promotion,
and get you a pay raise and move you in?
I said yes sir I'd love
to stay with this program
and this customer, and the technology.
And so six weeks later
I got the promotion.
But sometimes you, you
have to trick the system
because you get put in a
box, and people think of you
as they thought of you three years ago,
and you have changed so
much in those three years.
So I thank my husband for giving me
the brainiac idea to go do that.
And it was an inflection point that helped
open so many other doors to get
that credential, to get those promotions.
- That's great, so there
are three big themes
that I took from the
organizers here to talk about.
Career questions, diversity in aviation,
and looking forward, that was kind of
the themes they asked
me to kind of help out.
And before we start the
questions that you've seen
and they kind of asked me to give you,
I was thinking about this a little bit.
I'm wondering if each of you
might have some thoughts about
those topics, and in
particular if there's something
that you think is really
important in those,
that you think about that you're not sure
that other people really think about.
Is there something about career questions,
or career advancement that
you really worry about
that you're not sure everybody
else is paying attention to?
Or about the diversity in aviation,
or about even looking forward
at the future of aviation?
We can go in any of
those directions and then
I'll start asking some of their questions.
But hopefully this will
get the audience thinking
a little bit, wait a minute
I just heard her say this.
I want to know more about that.
So that's why I wanted this,
something that you might
be thinking about that
others aren't thinking about.
We keep going in the same order,
is that okay with all of you?
I can start doing, I
can start randomizing.
Margie's always like, oh
no I have to go first.
- I actually can answer that one.
- Oh then go, then good
by all means go first.
- This one I can start with.
- You're cleared for
takeoff then Captain, go.
- So something that I think
about, and maybe it's just me.
30 years ago when I started at my career,
there were as 3% female pilots
in the commercial industry.
And if you compared it to female
doctors, or female lawyers,
the numbers were pretty low
in all of those three fields.
Now fast forward 30 years, and you look at
the percentages in those three fields.
And depending on what you read
online, lawyers about half,
maybe slightly less than half
of lawyers are female now.
And if you look at doctors,
not surgeon so much,
but doctors, general practitioners,
not quite half but almost
half are females now.
You look at airline pilots,
we're still three to 5%.
So there's something there,
and I think that needs to be
investigated, or at least addressed.
And there's all kinds of
theories on why that is.
But it's glaring, and so it is
an issue and it is a problem.
So that's something that I think about
as I have a 20 year old
daughter whose interested
in being an airline pilot like her mom,
and a 17 year old son that's
interested in being an airline pilot.
So those type of things I think about.
- You ready Katherine, we
could skip around if you want.
I just felt bad that I kept that asking
the captain all the questions first,
and she didn't have any
time to think about it.
- I can be ready.
I think concerning the themes
career, and the diversity,
and also looking forward, a lot
of it can be tied to change,
and accepting change,
and normalizing change.
So actually to Mrs.
Payton's point, she had said
she handed off the resume
right without a name.
I can't wait to meet him, right.
I am very guilty of this,
actually Jen and I talked about this.
On the defense side I work, I engage
regularly with pilots, Navy pilots.
And it's very quick for me
to say well how how did he
land the jet, how did he fly the jet?
It's just kind of the norm almost.
And so it's just kind of that awareness
that a change should happen
just in our normal jargon.
And that if an engineer is hired new
to your team, oh when does he start?
It's just kind of a
social thing that needs
to be addressed, just
like you were saying.
And it's nothing there's,
no ill will meant by that.
It's just kind of society,
how it's evolved over time.
But it's identifying that
change, being aware of it.
But also moving at the
speed of change as well.
I was actually speaking about this earlier
to a couple folks, some of
some of what holds us back are
regulations are put in
place for everyone's safety.
A lot of what I do is
to improve system safety
performance based off of data.
However, in order to do that effectively
it does take a long time
and the speed of innovation
sometimes is such a hurdle
and a challenge to get over.
We have all these great and vibrant ideas,
but it's really hard to execute them
when you got to get the
contracts figured out,
or its money driven, especially on
the defense or the industry side.
And so it's just all
around change, and career,
and diversity that it's
accepting of that change,
recognizing it, and
really and just embracing
the changes of the future
whatever they may be.
- Yeah, so I'll build on these themes.
When we talk about
diversity and inclusion,
the way I like to think about it is
inclusion is about our environment.
And if we focus more on having
an inclusive environment
for everyone, no matter
what kind of bucket
they fall into, then
the diversity which is
more measurable will kind of happen.
So I think about the question earlier,
we had a young man ask
how can they be an ally.
And I try to think about that myself.
So I'm a woman, obviously,
but I'm also white,
I'm cisgendered, I'm
heterosexual, I'm able bodied.
So there are people out there
who I can be an ally for.
Yes, I need men to be an ally for women.
I need men to speak up when
they hear another man make
an inappropriate comment
and say that's not okay.
But I can also be that
ally to other groups.
And use they instead of he, for example,
different things about around
the language that I use
on a daily basis to be that ally that
I look for men to be an ally to me.
- I'm just trying to.
I still have the problem,
because I do work in
a small airport, and
people walk in the door
and they go are you a pilot, really?
I mean even in this day and age.
It is generally, not this generation,
you all have kind of
accepted the fact that
men and women can do the same thing.
But it is lots of times I do get that.
And then they all freak
out because I own a plane,
and I know how to, I'm doing
gliders and things like that.
You want to be in a small
minority, be a woman glider pilot.
They're really small,
but so we need the allies
whether it's another woman,
or a it's a guy, or whatever.
It's just we're,
unfortunately Sue and I are
kind of in this generation of
yeah, girls did this and guys did that.
And I told my husband the other night,
and he still didn't believe this because
we went to high school together.
I said we were not allowed to take shop.
I said I was one of the
first girls to take drafting,
and that was a hard thing,
and architectural drawing.
They just wouldn't let us in the shop.
And I still have no idea
why 'cause I'd rather
work on an engine than be in the kitchen.
(scattered applauding)
- So inclusion, diversity and inclusion.
I will tell you that advising
some of the companies
that my husband and I do advise,
there are some of them who literally have
five different generations
in their workforce,
as I'm sure you have recognized.
And the gaps between the generations,
need some focus.
We need to understand better
how to get the very best
out of the traditionalists
that might still be there,
because they were born up until 1945.
And the baby boomers
aren't going anywhere.
They want to work until they die.
And so everybody wants
them to just go home
and let me have that
job, but the baby boomers
are gonna be around for quite a while.
And then you have the gen Xers,
and they've been defined as some time
being born between 1965 and 1977.
And they're a little more skeptical
than the optimistic baby boomers,
but not quite as tech
savvy as your millennials.
And you've got your global's
that I talked about earlier
who are just inclusive and gender neutral.
They don't care, they don't
care what gender you are.
So I highly recommend to you
a lady named Anna Leotta,
and read her book, she has an amazing
not only analysis of how
all these generations.
If you can get the best
out of all of them,
it will be a huge force multiplier
and enabler for your company growth.
What ticks off the different generations,
and what makes them tick, and
she gives tools in her book.
And by the way I don't get any
money for publicizing this.
But she's an incredible speaker.
She has a 90 minute
presentation that will really
help you understand that
crazy baby boomer over there,
and why they think and
do the things they do,
and help that baby boomer understand
what that millennial really just said.
And I think that companies,
whether you're in the workforce
as one of these different generations,
or whether you're trying to
lead, it's very important
to understand how to
get the best out of all
the different folks in
different generations.
- So I think that explains
why Professor Spencer said
he was mildly disapproving,
because he and I
must fit in gen X, just
barely but we fit in gen X so.
Let me ask a couple other questions.
And I will turn it over to let
people in the audience ask.
One of the things that we had on here
was looking forward in aviation.
So maybe we can like
put our thinking cap on,
and get the crystal ball out and see where
a couple things might be going.
One of the things I wrote
down here, because I think
all of us have some thoughts
about this probably.
Advances in aviation still
happen at a pretty fast pace.
I mean the airplane
you fly on the outside,
probably looks a lot like the airplane
you first started flying at United,
but they're all different
on the inside now.
The engines are different.
One of the promising
developments is to use automation
to make flying safer, and
maybe even eventually autonomy.
Maybe that makes flying
something that's ubiquitous.
We could all go get in our
flying vehicle and travel around.
So that's something interesting to me.
What do you think are
some of these interesting
technology developments that you see
in your job in the aviation industry?
So I was using that
automation and autonomy
is something I see as interesting.
What do you see is
interesting in the industry?
We don't have to make you go
first unless you're ready.
- So you bring up a good
point but I would just
make a comment that the
airplane I fly for my company
is 35 years old, and the
technology that's in it
in many aspects is the same
technology from 35 years ago.
That little airplane I have
parked out at your airport here,
all the bells and whistles,
very sophisticated.
It's getting that latest and
greatest, and maybe that's
not the goal, but the
efficiencies that come with
that technology are what the
airlines are looking for.
But it's hard to make that a
cost effective change in sort
of the older generation
airplanes on a wide scale basis.
I think this is kind of
funny, but maybe it's not.
We're recently integrating
CPDLC as a mode of communication
across areas where we were still
using high frequency radio,
across the North Atlantic in the Pacific.
And that's like text messaging for us.
That's just become
available, and it's not even
widespread yet, or integrated worldwide.
So some of the issues
that we're faced with is
there's the globalization
of flying airplanes,
working with different
regulatory agencies,
working with different countries,
different rules of engagement
as you go around the world.
So the technology is
great, bring it, I love it.
We love it as pilots, I mean
we're just wired that way
to embrace it, sometimes it's slower for
us older pilots, but we still love it.
But to see it go wide scale,
takes a while to get it into my industry.
- It's a big capital investment,
huge capital investment in our
industry, it's a big effort.
So I'd like to hear more
about the digital twins
and health monitoring, you
don't have to say that.
But I'm curious about that too.
I mean is there some other
technology development
that you're looking at that this is really
neat to you, and affects you in your job?
- So in my role, it's data analytics,
it's a very broad thing
and that, I would say,
goes from all the way of
full data utilization.
And I'm relatively new to my role,
in the data analytics
role because everything
that I've done data wise
in my career has been
analyze the data, test
results whatever it is
from a flight possibly,
through a debrief process,
and then you go and troubleshoot.
That's kind of been what
it is, it's very reactive
to a problem that's
already been in existence.
Now we have other programs and
platforms that are going to
change how a system might
perform in the future,
upgrades, retrofits, whatever have you.
But we're kind of moving
now into the predictive
analytics realm, machine learning, AI.
It's all very exciting
but it takes so much time.
And what is really important,
it's not about just taking a bunch of data
and throwing it into a
supercomputer, it's not that simple.
In order to make it effective
and be able to be executed,
you have to have engineering expertise.
You have to have that
subject matter expert
able to put a different flavor,
put their different
glasses on so to speak.
I said that you can have
all the data in the world,
but depends on what glasses you wear,
you see different kinds of
data, you see different results.
And so it's kind of interesting I think,
the way the future is I like
to call a digital thread,
seeing how data can lead
to data driven decisions,
but also have proactive versus
that reactive maintenance concept.
And this is really on the defense side,
maintenance, initiatives to
ultimately improve readiness,
which you had mentioned
earlier, to improve aircraft
system performance as well,
and ultimately improve safety.
I mean you're having these pilots go up
and fly these heavily integrated machines.
And we talked about autonomy.
If you're still having
someone flying the jet,
there's only so much
autonomy you can have.
There needs to be that
human interaction there,
especially depending on the aircraft,
or this is yourself if you're
flying many many people.
That needs to be in
human hands in some way.
I mean that might be a personal
thing on my soapbox if you will.
But data analytics, I think
a lot of data can drive
data decisions, but it can
shed light on new opportunities
as you kind of pull on that
digital thread in many ways.
I'm not sure if that
answers your question.
- [Bill] There is no right answer.
I'm just what you were thinking about.
- And I'll agree, I
mean all the stuff with
data analytics is fascinating.
A couple other things
that come to mind for me,
it was mentioned this morning,
additive manufacturing and 3D printing.
That's a game changer,
we can print parts now
that have intricate inner surfaces
that you could not
physically make in the past.
And what it's doing is
challenging our engineers
to think differently about
how to design a part.
So if you let go of what you know about
traditional manufacturing, and you just
think about the purpose of a part.
Does it actually look the
way you think it looks?
And so 3D printing and
additive manufacturing
is really revolutionizing all
of that as far as a design
and a manufacturing
supply chain perspective.
The other thing too
that I find interesting
for personal reasons is
the idea of supersonic
flight coming back for commercial.
I have a sister-in-law who lives in London
my husband and I enjoy traveling,
I would love to be able
to get somewhere quicker.
And so specifically at
GE, one project that we're
working on, we have an engine
called the Infinity Engine.
We're working with Ariane,
who's partnered with Boeing
to design a supersonic business jet
that will fly subsonic over
land, and then Mach 1.4.
And the interesting thing
there is that there are
some challenges, tight
now there's a regulation
that says no sonic booms over land.
But there hasn't been
a whole lot of research
into why that is, and so
NASA actually is doing
some research to say what
if we could have a low boom
that's equivalent on audible
range to semi on a highway?
If we could get a sonic
boom down to that level
then would that regulation go away?
And then does that kind
of open some doors?
Because I think one
thing I remember learning
at Purdue specifically was
if you design an airplane
to do multiple things
it's probably gonna be
average at those multiple things.
If you design an airplane
to do one specific mission,
it's gonna be good at that mission.
So to design a supersonic
business jet that's good at
Mach 1.4, and good and subsonic,
that's a big challenge.
- Margie I understand because
we're retrofitting our plane
with some new parts and
pieces and things like that.
And I know how much it costs
for a little single engine.
I can't imagine how much
it would cost the airlines.
But the other thing is
you have to think about
what happens when, sorry it fails.
And all of a sudden you
have a pilot who doesn't
remember how to fly the plane.
And that does happen sometimes.
I mean even though we
practice it, when you get
in the jets unless you're doing it
in a simulator, you
really don't practice it.
But so that's one of the things that we
kind of have to think about
is yeah, I've been in a
brand new 172 that had 80 hours on it.
It was entirely glass,
and I looked and I said
I have no idea how to even make this work.
I have a 50 year old plane.
And we've just upgraded
everything so it will be
as close to glass as we can make it.
- So there are several
reasons why we don't
upgrade our aircraft, especially in the
Department of Defense as
rapidly as we need to.
And that's because we pretty much have
vendor lock in our cargo planes,
and in our fighter
planes, and our bombers.
And when I first got in the
Pentagon we were looking at
an open architecture from the
rapid capabilities office.
And we brought in the
big OEMs that really were
the folks who were building
our weapon systems,
our fighters, and our cargo planes.
And we said we want an open
architecture so that we can
plug in a different avionics package.
We want the interface
published so that we can
switch out things and upgrade more easily.
And it's gonna be very interesting to see
what really happens with our new B21.
Because it was really the first
plane that was bid to a
standard open architecture
that should allow us to avoid vendor lock,
and be able to get the best
price performance point
for those components as we upgrade
that system over decades and decades.
So I would say that the more
we focus on requirements
that drive open architectures
into everything we do,
the quicker we'll be able to
enhance them, upgrade them.
And we won't have a bomber that came off
the production line in the
Eisenhower era, that really
doesn't have the latest that
it could have in avionics.
I have a great deal of
hope for open architectures
in our defense systems in the future.
- [Margie] And I'm sure
the airline industry
would love it if you accomplish that.
- Absolutely and, we're working
with the commercial side
of the world to get
that, but let's face it.
The biggest profit in the
life cycle is in O and M,
and in contracted logistics support,
and in owning that tech baseline
with that proprietary stuff for 40 years,
and you can name your own price
because you're the only game in town.
And so until the government incentivizes
for openness, we won't get it.
Not only do we have to incentivize it,
we have to grade the
homework and make sure that
what's being built remains
open so we can plug and play.
- Lots of interesting insight
there, that's across the map.
Let me ask a question here.
It's a little tweak on one of
the questions we've sent you.
So take yourself now, and
talk to your 22 year old self.
That's probably the average
age of the students here.
What's the one piece of advice
you would tell 22 year old
Sue, or Margaret, or Jen, or Katherine?
What's that piece of advice that
you would tell 22 year old yourself?
Can I start with you Sue,
because I keep always putting--
- [Sue] You bet.
- [Bill] Margie on first.
- There are actually two things.
The minute you hit the ground
running in your first position
take a few weeks and figure
out who the real leaders,
bright rock star people
are in that organization,
and I don't care what
level, and seek a mentor.
I will tell you,
anytime I've ever asked for a
mentor I was never rejected.
And anytime anyone asked
me to be their mentor,
I always accepted that as
an honor to help someone,
or if there was someone way better than me
to mentor them I made sure
that got connected to them.
So do not be afraid to get mentorship.
But don't go to any Tom, Dick, or Harry.
So make sure that you're
assessing the people
in your organization that
can help you the most.
And the second thing I would offer,
is there's no substitute
for good listening.
I see so many people in businesses,
and in government especially,
and they really believe
that it's got to be my way or the highway.
And you can hardly get a word in edgewise
to talk with them about
different perspectives.
So if you go into your first
position as a good listener,
seeking a mentor I think you'll
be at least on second base.
- [Bill] Margot?
- I would say stand up
for yourself, be heard
but don't be obnoxious, because
that won't get you anywhere.
And follow, if you really
have a dream, follow it.
It may take a little zig-zaggy path.
But just follow it to
the best of your ability.
- Yeah I have two, so the, excuse me,
the first one would just be
to be confident in myself,
and know that I deserve
everything that I got.
That I worked hard for the
various opportunities that I had.
And just have that confidence.
I think the second piece
is to define what success
means to you, whether that's you yourself,
or you as part of a
family, or whatever it is.
I had a manager once tell me
if they offer you executive
of the cleaning crew, you should take it.
And that's because to
him becoming an executive
was the ultimate success,
and to me it wasn't.
And so knowing that everyone
you meet, your mentors,
your peers we all have a
different definition of success.
And figure out what
success looks like for you,
and understand that that's gonna evolve
as you evolve through your career.
But let that help drive you as opposed to
what other people think
you should be doing next,
or tell you that you should be doing next.
Really think about what does
success look like for you.
- I would say two things,
and they kind of go
hand in hand, or can
build off of each other.
One is networking, so in
addition to finding mentors
just like Mrs. Payton was saying,
networking up and networking
down is kind of important.
So one thing that someone told,
everyone's heard the whole
spiel it's about who you know,
building those connections.
But then someone once recently told me
it's also about who knows you.
And I think I told us to
a couple students as well.
Building up that network,
you're kind of building
your brand, building your reputation.
Even if you're just right out of college,
getting into industry,
getting into whatever field
you want, to pursue whatever
path or career you want.
It's important to build up that network
in any way that you can,
and to build your brand,
build that reputation, build who you are.
But also own who you are and be true
to yourself as much as you can too.
Because then if you're true to yourself,
then you're really not
having to work extra hard
at impressing anyone, you're just there.
And the other aspect of that that goes
hand in hand with networking
is the soft skills,
so communication, listening,
etiquette, candor.
We all talk about being super honest,
but also about being candid as well,
it can can kind of go a long way.
It's about how you deliver yourself
and information to other people,
and kind of be your own sales person,
in a way, as best as you can.
Y'all had IR last week right,
there was IR last week?
Fly online was the name
of the game kind of stuff.
You're essentially selling yourself,
selling you as a product to
whoever you were talking to.
So you gotta get your
elevator speeches going.
But that's kind of like interview prep.
And it also really gears you up for any
sort of presentations,
whether it's in the classroom,
or whether it's in front
of a top executive,
whether it's to a
customer, whatever it is.
It's those soft skills, but
also those listening skills
within those soft skills so
that you really can understand
how people are perceiving
you, and how you can better
communicate with others as
well within your network.
So that all kind of goes together.
- I'm not sure if it's
better going first or last.
(all laughing)
- Or is it better to be the moderator?
- Right right right.
Smart women, bunch of smart women.
I think I would tell that 22 year old me
it's gonna be a marathon,
but don't forget to enjoy the ride.
Too much stress, we're all, the whole room
is filled with smart,
goal oriented people.
And sometimes we just get
too focused on the end goal.
The people I met in college are some of my
best friends to this day, so enjoy that.
And it was probably the funnest
time in my life, was college.
- Awesome, thank you.
So I'd like to open it for
questions from the audience.
I don't know how we did this last time.
I know some of the organizers grabbed
a microphone and ran around
if you have questions.
There's at least one already here.
Avine, you want to take my microphone?
There's one in the back.
- We can share, we can share.
(all laughing)
- You have to answer
the questions, not me.
And I won't talk anymore.
- [Student] So I'm just curious.
I know as the older we
get a lot of people say
we're more inclusive with
women in the environment.
But there's still a lot of
discrimination that goes on.
So I'm curious how you guys
at a young age, going into
your industry handled that
in a professional manner
that didn't make you
seem snobby or obnoxious.
- I can take that.
Kathrine and I were
talking about this earlier.
I think in my career I've
never had someone to my face
say oh, you're woman
so you're less than me.
There hasn't been anything
blatant like that.
But there have been you
know microaggressions,
small comments that are made,
or that you overhear someone saying.
I think for me personally
early in my career,
I really struggled with
how do you call that out.
How are you not just the
woman who's always like
you should say they instead of he when
you talk about hypothetical engineers.
So I think you kind of have
to find what works for you.
If you have the confidence
to call someone out
earlier in your career, do it.
If like me you don't,
at that point my career
I had a great manager who
I was able to reach out to
a couple times and say hey, so and so
made these comments, it
made me uncomfortable,
and kind of have the
conversation that way.
I would say now that I'm a leader.
No problem, I see it as
my job to be that person
that calls someone out when I
hear an inappropriate comment.
But it can be very tough when
you're early in your career.
So find someone that you can go to
if you're not comfortable in that case.
- To kind of piggyback off of
obviously what Jen was saying,
yeah we did have a conversation
about this earlier.
I have personally experienced a little bit
of those little microaggressions,
and my confidence has
built up over the years
on how to handle that, it's
just like not cool, it's okay.
But it's kind of that awareness.
You don't know what you don't know.
And it might have been
fine for one person.
They may not have had the
confidence to not for themselves.
And so you kind of have to maybe,
okay this is a learning
opportunity for everyone here.
Everything is a learning opportunity
in life, is what I would say.
I think personally though, I
can walk into a board meeting
with a room filled with men,
and it's kind of interesting.
I personally like to, as
a female I sound different
than a man, and so your
voice will obviously
stick out in a crowd when you're
in a room filled with men.
And I would say you can kind
of use it to your advantage.
Once you get that
confidence, once you really
kind of can own your identity,
you can kind of use that
to speak up for someone.
I mean if someone else
is getting talked over,
you have that opportunity
because you sound different.
You can present yourself differently
and be like hey, let Jen
finish speaking kind of thing.
That's an advantage that
you can kind of play into
that I know I'm trying to
take better ownership of,
and learning from these
opportunities as well.
If I am the only female in the room,
to help motivate others as well.
I mean I may not have
anything to talk about.
But if you're trying to get
in a word then let my higher
pitch voice resonate a
little bit differently
and get someone else's attention,
on their behalf possibly.
- In my job, in most of my career
it's like working in a closet.
So when I go to work, I work with someone
sitting next to me in a closet.
And we sit together in this
closet for hours on end.
- With a really great view.
- With a really great
view, but it is a closet.
And there's just this humming sound that
goes on for hours, and hours, and hours.
And so you spend some of the time just
conversing with each other,
and getting to know each other.
And I would say early on, there was
some comments made over the years.
And at first it takes you off your game.
And it kind of rocks you back
on your feet a little bit.
But for someone that sort of
have the bravery to make those
comments sitting in a closet
next to somebody else,
those were few and far
between, I would tell you that.
Sometimes you could sense those thoughts
were there, but they weren't spoken.
And I think the way I
dealt with it was more
of a sort of an internalized anger
that this was actually happening.
But then it was almost kind
of an inside joke for me,
and that I was going to show you that
your thoughts or your comments
were completely baseless.
And now I'm sitting on the left side of
the cockpit in my closet,
and I'm the queen.
And so nobody says anything anymore.
(laughing)
- Well, when I was younger
I worked in generally
a female dominated field,
so we didn't have that.
And as I went into wholesale,
and I was the only female with 17 guys.
Most of them I didn't have a problem with.
And actually the that I did I just
kind of like looked at them and said,
I'm old enough to be your
mother and you better behave.
And the guys that I work with at work,
a lot of them are high schoolers,
or fresh out of college or whatever.
They wouldn't dare,
because they look at me
and it's like, she's like mom.
And so they wouldn't, they don't say.
It they're thinking it, they
are definitely not saying it.
And most of them wouldn't
even think that either.
- So I have a little bit
of a unique start in life.
I was born with a twin brother.
And we just were always treated equal.
And I was the only girl in
the neighborhood and a tomboy,
and I was mean as a rattlesnake.
I was probably the aggressor
of anyone in the neighborhood.
And I've always felt
very comfortable in rooms
with a lot of my peers being men.
I will say that I did
have a couple of jobs
where it was totally women,
and oh my gosh it was so catty.
Just deliver me from some of the drama.
I just have a little bit
different perspective.
And again, why did I mention the mentor?
Because that mentor can help you
figure out how to deal
and re-attack something.
I'll never forget when I was the
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense,
the Undersecretary of Defense
gave us all a personal coach.
Because he didn't know us
from Adam, he didn't hire us.
He had no idea if we knew
how to deal with people.
And so my coach helped me learn so much
about dealing with people, and when I left
and went to Air Force my
coach got to go with me,
because his contract hadn't expired yet.
And I do recommend, as
you get into positions
where you have more
leadership that you may want
to hire a professional
coach that will help you
through some of those personal
behavioral issues that you
might be having with some of
the folks that work for you.
- Thanks for the panel.
And one of my question is that,
is common to see like
international student work,
who study in the aeronautics or aviation
and work in the US industries currently?
Because I've heard if it
was international student
kind of hard to get a job
or career in US industries
in the future like the aeronautics,
like working Boeing, or the GE aviation.
- Yeah, I think in
general, speaking generally
it is more difficult for
international students
to get sponsored by a company
in the US in our industry.
I don't know how much more
to offer that I can offer--
- Well as a faculty
member I've observed that
it's been a little more
challenging recently
for international students
to get jobs in the US,
not impossible but it has
been more challenging.
There's a question here.
- [Student] So in terms
of the future of aviation,
I know that companies are looking back
into commercial supersonic flight.
But I know on the other side of that,
as well as fuel efficiency
and that type of thing.
I know that Boeing and Airbus
are kind of looking into
the hybrid electric field
in terms of aircraft.
I'm wondering what kind
of challenges you guys
have to overcome and
pursuing that endeavor,
and whether or not you guys think it will
be successful in the near future.
- So I can take that a little bit.
It's not my area of expertise but I know
when it comes to fuel
efficiency, for example,
GE has been doing research
on that for years.
We're looking at biofuels,
we're looking at hybrid engines,
and how do we become more efficient.
There was some technology,
we have caps combustors
that reduced our NOx emissions.
Our leap engine had a,
I'm gonna get this number,
I think it was a 10% decrease
in fuel burned versus
the CFM56, for example, so I
would say from GEs perspective
when it comes to the aircraft engines,
it's something that we're
working on, it's not new for us.
I mean, obviously, the
climate strike was yesterday.
There's a lot of media and
attention right now around
how industry is impacting the climate.
And I will say from a GE perspective,
it's something we've
been working on for years
and continue to put research
dollars into those efforts.
- I'm afraid I wouldn't really
have a Boeing answer to that.
But I do know, at least from a
generally speaking standpoint
we have been looking
into it, especially from
the fuel efficiency standpoint
because we always have
some sort of environmental
safety briefing going on.
So it definitely is at
the utmost of importance,
that we are considering
that, and they're doing
a lot of research into
how best to execute that.
- I think one of the questions
you have to answer is that
the energy that you
would use to go subsonic,
for only currently over
water, versus over land,
is it really worth that, for
that small amount of time,
for that small amount of
the population segment
in terms of the emissions cost.
And that's from an industrial standpoint,
and an environmental standpoint.
So currently, I think
you addressed it earlier,
the subsonic is only over the water now.
So until you can make it
more global where you
can use that technology
I think that's the hurdle,
the big hurdle at this point.
- Yeah, I mean if you think
about it to go supersonic,
to go faster you're gonna need
more fuel thrown into that engine.
So it's definitely at odds with having
more fuel efficient engines,
so it is kind of this
huge system thinking
problem to say we've got
regulations that say you can
only go supersonic over water.
We've got the environmental side of it.
You need more fuel to
actually go supersonic.
So I would say industry as a
whole, we are looking at it.
Like you said, hybrid electric is
something that that is being worked.
And I think one thing I've noticed about
this industry is like some of these ideas
that maybe when I was
sitting in your chair
more years ago then I want
to admit, things that seemed
like crazy kind of ideas
now are actually happening.
I mean look at we had
up here talking earlier.
So if you guys can dream
it, we'll get there.
- There is research
actually going on at Purdue,
looking at some of these very questions.
We're trying to model what would happen
if you put super sonics into the fleet.
And what's the environmental impact?
So that is a big important issue.
I think I'm supposed to
try to wrap things up
so we can swap the stage, is that correct?
Oh I still have 10 minutes,
so then never mind me.
That's usually what the
students do anyway, right?
(all laughing)
Professor's up there droning.
Are there more questions
for our panelists?
- Yes, so obviously
aviation and aerospace has
representation and diversity issues.
What strategies do you think
would be best implemented
to try and address those issues?
- So I'll speak up.
I think it starts at a very young age.
I have a four year old
daughter, and I will tell you
that from the moment I
found out I was pregnant,
people asked me do you
know if it's a boy or girl?
As if that mattered, right?
And I'm telling you from
the second she was born,
everything is pink, and so I mean
we're very conditioned to say
that women do these things.
I mean it's still prevalent.
My four year old still
gets handed a baby doll,
and her cousin who's a boy
gets handed a dump trunk.
So getting, doing outreach programs.
Katherine and I were both
involved in Purdue Space Day,
It used to be called Fall
Space Day when I was here.
Some of those things, to
get diverse individuals
interested in the STEM
fields, I think is how we're
gonna get more diversity
on campus like Purdue.
And then we're gonna see
more diversity at GE.
At GE we can't solve the
problem that there aren't,
we're not 50% female in
engineering in the US.
We have to kind of take it
back to my four year old
getting the media messaging that she gets
that she can be an engineer, and that
she's worth more than how she looks.
- So remember I said I work in a closet.
So people don't see me, when I'm at work,
and that's a problem, marketing.
I work in a closet, so you need to see me
and you need to see people like me
to be inspired that you can be me.
So that's part of the problem.
I applaud the major carriers, certainly in
this country now who are
actively pursuing us,
and actively recruiting
us, they want us there.
They found out that we're good
employees, we're good pilots.
And so they, to their credit,
are after us, and that helps.
So outreach.
- I think to that point
I would probably say
getting rid of assumptions
on people, just in general.
You can never judge a book
by its cover kind of deal.
Just getting rid of assumptions
that if that's a little
girl over there she likes
princesses or something like that.
It's just kind of getting rid of that.
My niece, both my nieces
actually, I give them
pink slippers that are in
the shape of airplanes.
So it's a win win in my book.
I'm like hey it's a great color,
and they're plush and cute, it's great.
So I think it's just
getting rid of assumptions.
I know that sometimes I'll
walk into a meeting at times,
and I'm not immediately
seen as an engineer.
They just they assume
that I'm from finance,
or contracts, or something like that.
Then you can whip out some technical stuff
and it's like whoa, she's legit okay.
So it's just kind of getting
rid of that assumptions,
and it's just that overall awareness.
And I think you just
generally getting rid of
any sort of assumption about a person
before you really can get to know them,
that's that's gonna benefit
the world really, just be kind.
(laughing)
- [Bill] There a question
over here on this side.
- So if you guys were to pick a situation
that made your career,
something that you guys decided,
okay this could have been
something that I would change.
Not necessarily something
that I did wrong.
That if I did it in a different way,
looking back five 10 years or maybe less,
some point that said okay,
this path was a wrong path.
How did you realize that, oh I should have
taken another turn on that situation.
Would it change anything?
- When you get up and like
somebody said this morning
that they cried on their way to work,
or they cried on their way home,
when you get up and you go,
oh god I gotta go to work.
That is when you really know
that you shouldn't be there anymore.
When you look at people and you just,
or your engine and you
just go, I don't like this.
That's when you've been in it too long.
That was how I was after
10 years in retail.
I didn't ever want to do it again,
and I still don't want to do it.
I don't care how much they pay me.
- This is a really personal story but
I think it goes to
trusting your intuition.
And one of the biggest
regrets I have from the
years and the Pentagon, was that I did not
come out with my guns blazing
when my Principal Deputy was
annihilated in the front
page of the Washington Post
for some type of, what
the Post reporter thought
was improper funding of his job.
It takes a long time to
get hired in the Pentagon.
And so we really needed
the expertise of this
combat war veteran who was a techno geek,
who understood all the
nuances of acquisition
and the federal acquisition
regulations, that is a unicorn.
That is a guy you really
want on your team.
So the Secretary of the
Air Force had him hired
under a contract, and it
was totally aboveboard.
And he was doing special work until
the personnel group could get him hired.
And when that, he did an interview
because someone had brought it to the
Washington Post as an issue,
and he was devastated.
And instead of protecting him,
coming out verbally and supporting him,
I was told by the calm
people that oh this story
has no bounce, it's not going anywhere.
And about three weeks later I get a call
that he'd committed suicide.
And I lost a dear friend, and a wonderful
contributor to our Air Force.
And I think we need to
really know when to act,
and when to take the advice of others
that may have different motives.
And so I think that's
probably my greatest regret,
that I wasn't a better wing
man for my Principal Deputy.
- [Bill] Maybe one more
question if there's time.
- [Shirley] I guess this
is more of a light hearted
question, what are your favorite aircraft?
'Cause I know there are pilots on there.
So what are your favorite aircraft
to fly or just look at I guess?
(all talking at once)
- [Bill] Margie wants
to go first this time.
- [Jen] Margie's ready.
- It's whatever plane you're flying.
I checked out as a Captain in 1996,
that was my first captain
ship and that was in a 727.
So that'll always have a
special place in my heart.
But truly if you ask a
pilot what their favorite
aircraft did is, Donna
Bering in the back there,
it's always the airplane
that you're currently flying.
- I agree with that but yeah, my personal
favorite happens to be a Cessna 177.
And that's what I have the most hours in.
So that's kind of why
I like that one better
than most of the rest of them.
But I've also flown 150s,
172s, 182s, and Pipers.
- Mine's the SR71, it's just
a sexy plane, I mean come on.
And that's blasphemous
for me to say because
it's not GE engines but,
don't tell anyone okay.
That's my favorite plane.
The Wright-Patt Air Force Museum,
if you have not been there, it is amazing.
It's about what three hours
from here in Dayton Ohio?
So it's only about an hour
for me from Cincinnati.
It's free, go there if you have not been
because they have some amazing planes.
You can get geeked out about whatever
your favorite plane is,
they probably have it.
- And expect to spend multiple days.
- Anna, did you ask that
question, is your name?
You're name's Shirley okay.
Shirley I've got to
tell you without a doubt
it's the A-10 Warthog,
and I will tell you why.
Of course I've never flown it.
Thank God I've never been shot by
a pilot who was strafing the ground.
But I had lots of occasions
to go to Walter Reed
when I worked at the Pentagon.
And I'll never forget going into this one
Army Sergeant's room and he had been
really really injured in Afghanistan.
And of course the Air Force
didn't have as many injuries,
because we were above the
fray a lot, and flying.
So I went in there and I said
if there's anything I can do.
And he looks at me like what
in the world could you do?
But he said, there is something,
you're from the Air Force.
Do you have enough clout to bring
an A-10 pilot in to talk to me?
And I said I'll bring you a whole squadron
of A-10 pilots to talk to you.
And the reason he wanted
to talk to an A-10 pilot
is because he had been
caught in a crossfire.
And literally that A-10 pilot came in
and schwacked the bad
guys, and saved his life.
So we did, we arranged
for A-10 pilots to go in
and visit with him, and
it's because of the mission.
And I hate it that they think the F-35
can take that mission over,
because I just don't get it.
But we got to keep our A-10s
flying, and keep them upgraded.
And to me that's the greatest
DoD weapon system we have.
- I have one, it's hard to go after Sue,
so I'll go on if you want to think.
- Well I kinda got some, but
I think I'm a little bit torn
being that they're not a Boeing maybe.
And so I was like, oh don't.
- [Bill] And you work on the F-18 maybe.
- I know, so I do work on F-18s
so I do love me some F-18s.
I mean, oh yeah, they
just get your heart going.
It's a pretty sexy jet.
Then you got, I did work on
the F-22 program so I kinda.
The F-22 program is joint collaboration
between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
And it was like my first
real career platform
I got to serve on, so that
always will have a soft spot.
It's also a super sexy jet too.
I think just a P-51 Mustang though.
- [Margie] Oh my God.
- Do you hate me?
- [Margie] I love it.
- Okay, I was like oh God what did I say?
- I've never been around this many women
who thinks airplanes are so sexy.
- I just got to say if you haven't been
to Oshkosh, Wisconsin
for the Air Adventure.
Oh gosh, if you camp out,
you hear those Mustangs
roaring up at six in the morning,
normally you wouldn't want
to be woken up at six in the morning,
but with that sound it's really okay.
- [Margie] Very cool.
- Oh it's so cool.
- I'm still trying to get
a ride on a Lockheed Constellation.
I think there's two or three left flying.
Had a shot at, it was like
he'd $800 for 30 minutes
when I was an undergrad,
and I couldn't afford it.
But the Lockheed Connie
is just a beautiful
plane to look at, that's mine.
Hey, I think we're out of time.
Please join me in thanking
our panelists Sue,
Margot, Jen, Katherine, and Margie.
Thank you for the questions.
We're gonna start the next session
as soon as we turn the stage over I think.
The next session will start as soon as we
turn the stage over, so hang around.
Thank you, thanks.
