by Charles C.
I worked at Michoud from July 1981 through
December 2009 on the Space Shuttle external tank project. Lockheed Martin is a fantastic
company. I saw dedicated and intelligent people working every day, and am proud
of its mission.
My story, however, is about a particular
event in the early 1980s. I was in charge of the performance analysis quality
trending, and was the presenter at the monthly meetings with quality and
production management. Most meetings were fairly routine, with general cause and
corrective action comments and explanations of performance. Most in the
audience just wanted the meeting to be finished.
One month, however, an elderly, tall
gentleman came in and started asking questions, one after the other, about
quality and production issues relative to the data being presented. Although I
knew the questions were not really directed at me to answer, but rather to production
and quality managers, it started to get on my nerves a bit. I finally asked the
gentleman, something to the effect of “You
ask a lot of questions. Who are you?” Well, half the room burst out in
laughter, and the other half were like me, not knowing who he was. His response
was “I am George Rodney, and I should
probably come to these meetings more often.” It turned out he was Director of
Mission Success at the time, and he was located in another building. Needless
to say, I became aware of who he was, and his history with Martin. He was quite
a man, as described in the book Raise
Heaven and Earth.
The moral of the story is to know your
audience. That lesson will remain with me always!
