Profile: David J. Evans
Leading Corporate Education
by Donna J. Born
Dave Evans has led learning, professional staff development, and knowledge sharing at Aerospace—all keys to a highly competent workforce.
Dave Evans, seen here in his office, has led The Aerospace Institute since late 1995. |
A skilled workforce is The Aerospace Corporation's prime resource in its efforts to support the nation's space programs, and developing and retaining a staff with high technical competence has always been a corporate priority and contractual obligation. The corporation's original contract with the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Organization, its primary customer at its beginning, stated that Aerospace is "responsible for providing the Air Force missile and space efforts with an organization … possessing high technical competence." The corporation's current contract with the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center continues to require Aerospace to perform "at the highest level of competency [that] cannot be found at any other place."
Staff training and development, thus established at the corporation's inception in 1960 by both corporate policy and structure, became the responsibility of the corporation's personnel department, later Human Resources Division, whose mission was to support the success of the corporation through "training and development to help employees attain their full potential." It remained part of that organization until management combined all education and training programs under a separate division called The Aerospace Institute.
David J. Evans, the Institute's executive director, said management recognized that the needs of a growing and changing customer base required a new concept of training. Creating the new division, Evans said recently, was intended to put "added emphasis on those aspects of continuing learning and knowledge sharing that were really essential for helping Aerospace move forward. Addressing the corporation's need for greater systems engineering skills was uppermost in management's purpose."
The Institute was first proposed to the corporation's board of trustees in 1993 in a management report on staff training and development at Aerospace. The report stated that the corporation's mission for training and development was to "provide professional staff development and skills training for all employees; encourage continuing education to enhance professional excellence and employee productivity; and accommodate individual career and organizational needs." The main thrust of the report, however, was to urge approval for a new division to assume responsibility for this mission, to implement a leadership culture, and to develop a systems engineering program that would grant a certificate. This structural change would raise workforce development to the status of a division, whose vision was "to be the world's leading training institute for [space] systems engineering." Training world-class space systems engineers would be its mission.
The board approved the proposal, and the Institute was created in June 1994 with Jack Schiewe, formerly group vice president of the Engineering and Technology Group, as its first executive director. "Jack established several committees of interesting people from across the company," Evans recalled, "and we put our heads together and figured what was this organization going to look like and how was it going to work and what were we going to do. We had to anticipate what our government customers were going to need in the future and then prepare our employees to be skilled and capable to do that kind of work."
Under the Institute's umbrella were Training and Development, Library Services, The Aerospace Press, The Aerospace Colloquia Series, and all training formerly scattered throughout the corporation. "The idea was to make those pieces work together more than they had in the past to provide more benefits for the corporation and more corporate impact." Evans, who had led development of the Institute's original System Engineering Certificate Program, became executive director in December 1995 upon Shiewe's retirement. "Pete Aldridge Jr., who became the CEO in 1994, asked me if I would be willing to come over to the Institute and serve as the director. So I've been here now since late 1995—more than 11 years. Time goes by in a hurry," he reminisced.
A Natural Fit
Evans was a logical choice for this position because of his technical and educational background, and his understanding of the education needs of both Aerospace and the Air Force. He joined the company in 1987, but had been associated with Aerospace since 1967, when he was on assignment from the Air Force for 6 months to write his master's thesis. "I had a very good impression of Aerospace then, just a young lieutenant working with all these top-notch scientists doing satellite-data analysis, and it was very interesting and very challenging. I learned so much in such a short time, and I got a very positive impression of Aerospace right from the beginning," Evans said. Not least among the reasons for his good feelings about Aerospace was that he met his wife, Rita, who is today a principal director in the Corporate Information Resources Division.
George Paulikas, now retired executive vice president of Aerospace, was his thesis advisor and encouraged Evans to continue his graduate work. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Irvine, and later taught at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where he eventually became chairman of the physics department. His first assignment as an Aerospace employee was as a senior engineer in Advanced Orbital Systems. At the time of his appointment as executive director of the Institute, he was a principal director in the Office of Engineering and Technology Applications.
Evans described those early days shaping the Institute as interesting, but challenging. "One of the most important initiatives the Institute was chartered with was preparing people to serve as systems engineers. Mr. Aldridge had made it very clear to me that what was most important to him was for us to focus as a corporation on our systems engineering skills—to really make sure that that was a core competency at Aerospace. There were other skills, such as skills in management, skills in leadership, skills in professional behaviors, as well as others, but the most important was systems engineering. When I look back at those early courses, they seem so elementary and so basic. When we first started the systems engineering core course, for example, it was a full two weeks. Now it is a four-day course. We've really scrubbed it, and it's much better focused on corporate business needs."
Systems engineering, a systematic problem-solving methodology, had always been part of Aerospace's mission, and some basics were taught in the corporation's early courses. But in the 1980s the corporation began planning for a substantial increase in its systems engineering skills, and in 1992 and 1993 Aerospace sent 13 engineers through the systems architecture and engineering master's degree program at the University of Southern California. The program had been created by Eberhardt Rechtin, who joined USC upon retiring as president of Aerospace in 1987. Many of that program's graduates later contributed to building the Institute's technical courses.
Evans recalled the Institute's efforts to get experts from all over the company to help design the engineering courses. He believes that determination to build quality into the programs gained the respect of early skeptics. "Today we have about 300 members of the technical staff who are working with us as course designers and instructors. I think it is quite an achievement that this many people from other parts of the company want to work with the Institute. They see it as important to take time from their primary jobs to help make the Institute successful."
The Institute's mission today is to promote a corporate culture of continuing learning and knowledge sharing. More than 350 Aerospace people contribute to delivering 157 courses to an annual enrollment of nearly 4,000. In addition to the training and education courses, the Institute administers a university affiliates program that includes 17 major universities. The Institute's leadership development program prepares the next generation of leaders to be effective in Aerospace's changing environment. The corporate library provides employees with an extensive technical collection and access to numerous electronic sources. The Aerospace Press publishes technical books and Crosslink, the corporation's technical magazine. Institute technical classes are sought by, and offered to, external customers who support national security space.
Workforce development has become a corporation-wide endeavor, as exemplified by the implementation in 2003 of a new policy and associated practices for continuing learning and knowledge sharing. Employees are strongly encouraged to pursue at least 40 hours of learning activities each year to support their performance improvement and career development objectives. The Institute is the primary source for courses and multimedia learning products, but other organizations also offer specialized training and staff development activities. The Engineering and Technology Group Tutorial Series is held monthly to spotlight major areas of expertise within that group. Each 45-minute session introduces a subject and highlights activities of ETG experts working in that area. "Our Place in Space" is a series of seminars by technical staff that offer nontechnical staff insight into specific satellite programs, launches, testing capabilities, and research areas supported by the corporation. The Aerospace Rotation Program offers members of the technical staff an opportunity to take an assignment for up to 12 months in another company organization primarily to develop their interorganizational knowledge; personal careers; technical, leadership, and business skills; and greater understanding of Aerospace's customers.
Evans praised another Aerospace practice—mentoring—not formally organized with standardized guidelines, but a traditional part of the culture in organizations throughout the company. Mentoring has also been a valuable activity of Aerospace's retiree casuals in their efforts to pass on corporate knowledge to younger employees. Evans also is grateful to his own mentor, Paulikas, for his guidance in helping shape his career at Aerospace. "I think that's one of the most effective ways to help our newer employees understand how to do their job—how to make their contributions—because they have a personal coach or a mentor they can turn to for advice. It's basically a relationship between two individuals that they build, and they make it work without any structure required. It's part of the environment at the corporation where people are willing to help each other and take the time to share what they know. I think that's been a very important quality at Aerospace."
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