When Wanda Austin took over as CEO at The Aerospace Corp., she became the aerospace and defense industry's first African-American female CEO. A a leader of an organization whose total mission is research, development, and innovation, she has brought to the task a laser-like focus on people, attracting fresh new thinking and assuring that the expertise of highly experienced people is passed on. Aerospace Corp. ranked at the top of the industry in all three categories, Technological Challenge, Valuing the Individual, and Learning/Career Development, of the Aviation Week & Space Technology study, "Where A&D Professionals Want to Work." Austin is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is currently a member of the Augustine Commission.

AW: The Aerospace Corp. tends to have more liberal policies with regard to benefits and education (sabbaticals specifically) and offer a strong compensation package. For a federally funded research facility, how are you able to do this?

WA: We don't view them as liberal; they are part of a total picture. We deliver people, that is our product, so it is really important that we attract and keep people at the cutting edge in terms of capability and skills. That's what we deliver. Sabbaticals, tuition, those are critical to our government customers. We are always assessing the balance and looking at different ways to deliver learning and capability. We encourage continuing education. Sometimes it means taking a course or degree program, but it also sometimes means teaching a class.

We are experiencing the same budget pressures everyone is, but these are values (such as commitment to our people) that are of importance to our business. We did downsize the number of opportunities available, but not the jobs. To work here, individuals must be more competitive to obtain a job or internship. Our summer intern program this year was restricted; we continued to work with students with whom we had relationships, but we were not able to bring in anyone new.

AW: What about internships? Do you think these are important to this industry?

WA: Yes, but internships are more competitive; performance becomes even more important. If your grades are not top notch, you probably won't get those opportunities. I tell students that they really do have to be on their best game to work in this type of field. We continue to send the message that working in science, math and engineering disciplines is the pathway to exciting careers. But you need to work hard to give yourself that opportunity.

AW: Technological Challenge is key ingredient for our industry and Aerospace Corp. is at the top of the game. What are some of the newest/best things going on that you can talk about and how has this changed over the past couple of years?

WA: There are a number of areas that are very exciting. Lithium ion battery technology; weight is a key limiter in trying to go to space. Any technology that increases performance and reduces weight is in our scope. We also are studying microelectronics and (ways to) scope down on size while increasing capability. Testing is important, as in how do you test this new hardware and make sure it will in fact survive the life of today's satellites. Some of these satellites are old enough to vote. With the significant transmission in data transmission, we have to look at how can we use the potential of 50X rates in data transmission. Our customers say bring it on, they can't get enough bandwidth. And then there is the space environment and space debris. Space is an environment that we need to take care of, too.

AW: The entire A&D industry faces profound challenges due to the economy. What is your outlook in terms of what we learned from past downturns and how we're handling this one?

WA: If we look at the context we are operating in, our increased reliance on space and that what we are now doing in space is so much a part of our way of life. People take for granted their GPS, cell phones, data transmission. While there is budget pressure and people are scrutinizing what we will continue forward with as a nation and what we must stop doing, there is real recognition that the United States must be a leader in space. In order to do so, we need to maintain head and shoulders leadership in the capabilities and performance we can deliver from space. Our challenge is to continue to deliver capabilities faster, deliver capabilities with predictable schedules. We must examine where we have opportunities to leverage and collaborate across all the resources available -- NOAA, NASA and National Security space; where we can avoid duplicating and instead share insights across all these communities. It will take time to ferret out priorities. But space will continue to be important. Now, other nations have made it a priority and we must continue to invest to discover new things and protect our current assets and capabilities to assure we have seamless access to space.

However, being the world's leader does not mean we have to pay for it alone, for everything or drive every opportunity. We (as a nation) want to focus attention on taking the next leap and we have to figure out where the dollars will come from. So, is there some way to work with international partners to gain the flexibility we need to pursue all new ventures?

AW: What's your primary concern as you look to the future of The Aerospace Corp.?

WA: We are always looking for a set of critical skills. The skills mix issue for us is a real balancing act; we have to predict today what areas of expertise our customers need 18 months from now. We're expected to proactively advise customers on this. We do not see any big growth numbers. Our total headcount at the end of this year will be about what it was at the end of last year. We are not seeing any new disciplines emerging, but the criticality of some people's skills is shifting. We're very concerned about vulnerability to cyber attacks and must think about satellite design from a different viewpoint. What is the worst case scenario in terms of information assurance. And address that as well as all the other issues.

One thing that I am very proud of is that our people (working at The Aerospace Corp.) feel a real strong sense of mission; they are proud to be serving their country the way that they do. Integrity and objectivity are two of our values and that is very important to our technical staff. We all share a responsibility to do the right thing. We work hard at this message.