by Emanuel DiM.
My story at Lockheed Martin spans 27 years
that were filled with amazing technical and management challenges and successes.
These years were also full of opportunities to work for and with inspiring
people. Milstar was a seminal part of my career story. Leading up to the
original proposal for the Milstar program, Jim Peterson introduced me to
systems engineering and nuclear survivability. He also inspired my interest in
these fields, which led me into the development of system concepts and
technologies that were at the epicenter of the Cold War. This mind-expanding
work culminated in my working with an amazing team that won the Milstar Satellite
System contract and shaped most of my Lockheed Martin career. In addition to
Jim’s system engineering expertise, I was inspired by the program and executive
management skill of Sam Araki, the technical leadership of George Cline, the
satellite engineering expertise of Tom Kertesz and the survivability
engineering expertise of Ed Smith. The Milstar program became an example of
heroic perseverance. The program overcame funding challenges, launch vehicle
changes stemming from the Challenger Disaster and mission requirements deviations
due to the ending of the Cold War. Despite these factors, the leadership of Lockheed
Martin and Air Force personnel persevered. They allowed Milstar to realize its
potential as a major national asset for global command and control of strategic
and tactical military forces. Nearly 20 years after my early Milstar experience,
I was privileged to be the senior Lockheed Martin executive on the last Milstar
satellite launch.
