Profile: Wanda M. Austin, The Aerospace Corporation President and CEO

A Commitment to Core Values and Mission Success

Wanda Austin's career has spanned nearly three decades with Aerospace. Now, she's stepped into the role of a lifetime: president and CEO.

Like many others who come to The Aerospace Corporation expecting to work at the company for a few years before moving on, Wanda Austin stayed on because she found the technical challenges and opportunities for growth to be so vast. "It is fascinating work. It is work that is important. And it is work with people who just love what they are doing, and are very, very talented," Austin said in a recent interview. Today, after nearly 30 years at Aerospace, she has risen to the corporation's helm, having stepped into the role of president and CEO on January 1, 2008.

The new CEO is dedicated to guiding the corporation she envisions will continue to be a leading architect of national security space programs and a principal technical resource for space and launch programs of national significance. Aerospace, a private, nonprofit corporation, operates a federally funded research and development center; in that role it is accountable to provide its government customers with objective analysis and advice as a key partner in mission success. "Our goal is 100-percent mission success for our customers," Austin said.

That goal is being realized as Aerospace and its customers are enjoying a record-setting string of successes. "This doesn't just happen," Austin explained. "It is very much a disciplined process where people understand the importance of mission assurance." Aerospace's testing, verification, and validation process is designed to ensure that what is being launched is, in fact, what has been designed and requested; adhering to this disciplined process is what allows for success after success, she said.

"It requires having an astute team that can recognize when something is not right. It requires strong leadership so that when someone raises an issue, all sides recognize the importance of stopping, of making sure we understand the problem and have taken the necessary corrective actions," Austin said, adding, "I think it's really important that people understand that you can lose that process by cutting corners, by trying to save schedule or cost—which ultimately will cost you the entire mission if you're not careful. We went through a period in the late '90s during acquisition reform where we experienced that. And we are still recovering because a lot of the space systems that were formulated during that time have not flown yet. We still have a lot of hard work in front of us."

Soon after Austin began her presidency, she met with the entire senior management team and corporate officers to give them an opportunity to discuss issues that are important going forward. New and existing technical areas where Aerospace needs to be a leader were identified, but the discussions also led to reinforcement of the corporation's core values: dedication to mission success, technical excellence, commitment to employees, objectivity, and integrity. "Making sure we continue to adhere to those values is really, really key. Every employee contributes to making Aerospace successful," said Austin.

Aerospace's internationally renowned experts help drive innovation, reliability, and mission success for the U.S. space community. Austin expects that the Aerospace that exists 10 years from now will need even greater expertise in systems-of-systems and capabilities engineering. She said it is imperative that the technical staff understands the capabilities of the systems being delivered, how they interact with other systems, and how they can be optimized for even greater value.

"We used to design and develop hardware as a stovepipe, as an entity into and of itself. Our world is far more complex. Our systems interact with each other. We have satellite systems, and uncrewed as well as crewed systems that are operating fairly independently. And so, when we talk about architecting the future of space, it's really important to do it in terms of those future capabilities," Austin said.

In terms of technical challenges for the corporation, top items also include cyber warfare and space protection—how to ensure that the United States maintains its preeminence in space. "Aerospace is uniquely positioned to help its customers in this area because of its backplane of support across the national security space community. We will continue our focus on mission success—both short- and long term," she said.

Workforce development will also remain a high priority. "We don't deliver hardware or software, but we do deliver the capabilities of our people. And so, we need to pay attention to developing our workforce, developing talent for our future, developing leaders for the future," Austin said.

"If I were talking about a vision going forward, the first thing I would talk about is maximizing our value and contributions to the national security space community. This is consistent with our corporate values and it is why we operate an FFRDC. It is really important that people understand what makes us different, and why we make the decisions that we do in terms of engaging on hard issues, providing data, and delivering difficult messages to customers to better enable them to make hard choices about how to go forward," Austin said.

Early Enthusiasm for Math

Austin grew up in New York City, and was motivated from an early age by an interest in mathematics. "It was not something that was taken for granted in my community that people would go to college." Austin graduated from Franklin and Marshall College with a bachelor's degree in math and went on to receive her master's degree in math and civil engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. It was there that her career path really took shape: "At graduate school, I discovered engineering—that this was the thing that I could really get excited about."

Wanda Austin addresses a packed room of employees at her first quarterly report as president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation.

Austin began working at Aerospace in 1979 in the Information Processing Division, which supported the satellite operation side of space systems. Her first assignments drew upon her experience in systems modeling. "I had an opportunity to get a glimpse, firsthand, of what it meant to really develop a system that operated a satellite, and I had an opportunity to interact with people and understand how important the capabilities were that we were delivering through those systems. That was, I think, when I just got the bug and was sold on the work we were doing here." She later transferred to the Defense Dissemination Program, a classified program that involved travel to locations around the world. "That was a great experience, because you get a firsthand exposure to the importance of the mission and the people who, around the world, were depending on having our systems work and having them work right. It was a great learning experience."

At one point in her career, Austin had what now seems a prophetic conversation with then–Aerospace president, Eberhardt Rechtin. He encouraged her and said she had tremendous potential, but told her that one of the things she would need was a Ph.D. With that encouragement and the corporation's support, Austin went on to earn her Ph.D. in systems engineering from the University of Southern California. Today, Austin is internationally recognized for her work in satellite and payload system acquisition, systems engineering, and system simulation.

Over the years, Austin filled a series of leadership positions at Aerospace. She served as manager for Air Force Satellite Communications Systems, systems director for the Milstar Space Segment Directorate, principal director of the System Development and Operations Subdivision, general manager of the Electronic Systems and Milsatcom Divisions, senior vice president of ETG, and finally senior vice president of the National Systems Group, a post that took her back to the East Coast for several years. "At some leadership levels," she said, "you're really focusing on helping people be the best technical contributors that they can be, while at the same time keeping up your own skills." As a person goes up the corporate ladder, it becomes more important to understand the bigger picture. "By the time you get to be general manager, you really have a corporate responsibility. And so you are enabling your specific organization to do its part in making sure the corporation meets its mission, but you also have an eye for making decisions on the basis of what's best for the company," she explained.

Other lessons in leadership, she explained, include "figuring out what it is that you are responsible for doing—what no one else in your organization can do, and making sure that you do that first—because people won't be able to do their jobs if you haven't done your piece of it." Then, she said, delegate what you can. "They're not going to do it exactly the same way that you would have done it, but it's a learning process for them, and with your guidance, they'll be successful." Another critical point is to "always make certain of being fair," she said. "Make sure that your expectations are realistic and that employees have a good chance of being successful at the things you are asking them to do."

After 29 years (and counting), what has been most rewarding to Austin in her career at Aerospace? "The satisfaction comes from having mission success, without a doubt. When you're standing at a launchpad and things go well, and you get to the point where the rocket lifts off and delivers a payload exactly where it's supposed to be, and everything works in accordance with the plan, there's a tremendous, tremendous sense of satisfaction," she said. "I don't think that there is a paycheck in the world big enough to equal the thrill that you get from accomplishing a successful mission."

To Spring 2008 Table of Contents