By William M.
In 1972, I joined RCA’s Astro Electronics Division (a Lockheed Martin
heritage company), near Princeton, New Jersey. There, we built spacecraft to
perform various missions from earth orbit—navigation of Navy ships, worldwide
communication, earth weather observations from space, geo positioning for earth
navigation.
For 23 years, I was manager of mechanical analysis, manager of
mechanical test and manager of mechanical design. I supervised a group of engineers
to perform these various functions by utilizing computerized methods. The size
of this group varied from two to 44 engineers, and from three to five dedicated
technicians. Although I achieved technical success, I am most proud of recruiting talented staff and then creating and environment in which they could
excel and exceed customer expectations!
We learned the value of having a weekly group meetings. By my last week,
a new manager had been appointed to replace me and he had been conducting this
meeting for several weeks. I requested that he give me I5 minutes at the end of
the meeting. I presented my "Ten Rules for Success in Engineering."
I’ve had lots of requests for copies since I retired!
