...from Lockheed Martin, one of our sponsor corporations.
Speaking first will be Dr.
Wendy Hamilton.
Actually, Dr.
Kate Cherry...
Oh, I'm sorry, I got it in the wrong order.
Dr.
Kate Cherry will be starting us out, followed by Dr.
Wendy Hamilton.
Their topic is making it an industry, a look from the inside, the inside of Lockheed Martin.
That's right.
Okay, this is screwed up.
So, I will stay with the other mic.
Okay.
How's that?
Welcome.
I hear you all have to sign the attendance sheet.
It's nice to have a loyal following.
Okay, basically what we were asked to do is kind of tell you what Lockheed Martin has for new college hires.
So, new hires, and then how we look out for you in your career in Lockheed Martin, say up to your first five years.
At which point, I would consider you sophisticated than Lockheed Martinese.
So, at that point, we kind of figure you're ready to fight your own battles.
And we kind of let you loose on your own.
But up to then, we have a couple programs to kind of help you get through the system.
Because what you may not be aware, having been in academia a good part of your life, unless you've done some internships, is that every corporation has its own culture.
And the first thing you want to do is figure out what that culture is all about.
Because that's how you win.
So, let's get going on this.
I've kind of talked through this, and I'm going to talk to these three programs.
Basically, we do have... I'm just getting used to technology here.
We do have one that's really right when you're out of college.
Right when you're out of college, but you're thinking management, even though you're technical.
And then we give you about five years to get your feet wet.
And then we pick you up again for a more of a leadership position.
So, I'll talk a little bit about that.
Then Wendy, who's more R&D, will talk about her insights and how she survived, which is probably much closer to your academic world.
I've gone on a slightly more management path, but I've done my share of R&D.
I used to run R&D programs for the CIA.
So, I did that before I came to Lockheed Martin.
So, in computer science.
Some neat stuff.
That, of course, I can't tell you about, or I'd have to.
You know how that goes.
Anyways, the first thing we do is we try to take care of the students.
What I'm going to try to do is about 20 minutes here.
So, if somebody would just give me 20 minutes after.
Give Wendy 20 minutes to kind of tell you how she succeeded.
She has an interesting history because she's kind of recently come to Lockheed Martin via an acquisition.
We buy companies sometimes just to build up our portfolio of strengths.
So, she can tell you a little bit how that has been.
And then I'll come back and give you some insights on the path I've gone through.
Which basically has been working programs for the government.
I'm in the D.C.
area, so that's my primary customer is government.
We'll talk a little bit about that.
Okay, the first program basically is just to deal with recent college graduates.
They come, they sign the line.
They really don't know too much about the culture.
We lose them fairly quickly.
They may leave after a year.
Statistically, we don't have a good track record with keeping them.
This is not atypical of most corporations.
It's just hard as a new person who's been in academia to figure out the rules of the game.
So, it was worth it to us.
Especially with, you know, I'm sure you've heard the demographics about the baby.
I guess I don't need my backpack much longer.
The demographics of baby boomers all kind of going out at the same time.
And we have to look to our new hires and our fairly recent hires to supplement the big exodus.
So, we have to make sure that we have those people in place.
And so, that was really the, just really trying to work on a feeling of inclusiveness for the new hires.
That they were part of the process.
They were introduced to some of the leaders.
They began to know the faces.
They understood our culture.
They understood what was going to win you praise before you had to go out and go through a couple of evaluations.
And find out you weren't doing the right things that they really wanted.
Which is a painful process.
Especially if you've come from academia and you've been a top student.
And so, here all of a sudden they're playing by different rules.
And it takes a while to understand what those rules are.
So, we try to focus a little more on keeping these people connected to us.
And of course, just by the fact there was a bunch of new college graduates that kind of made a nice support network for each other.
So, we'll show you some of the things that they do together.
We really at this point don't do too much with them on the job.
As much as form like these information sessions.
So, in your area we have sessions to help people get through the SISP program.
Which is a key thing.
It's something when we sell a program to the government.
We say we have ten people that are SISP qualified.
So, that's a certificate that they look for in the government.
Something that I don't know if you can work that here.
Probably, I'm sure staff has thought about this.
He's an honorary SISP.
I saw that someplace.
So, he has been honorarily inducted into the SISP group.
A lot of peer-to-peer mentoring I was talking about there.
And that's really where they work together to get through different exams.
And kind of help each other share information.
There is, since a lot of the work we do is with the intelligence community.
There's need for clearances.
Now, some recent college hires come with that already.
If they happen to have walked into that area.
Maybe through well up our neck of the woods NSA.
Hires a lot of interns.
Sandia National Labs down in New Mexico.
Hires a lot of interns to get some clearances.
So, I don't know how you all work into that.
But that's something that you might be put into a status of waiting your clearance.
And so, at that time, that's a good time to get all these kinds of certificates.
Extra things that you want to get done.
Start your masters.
If it's in a related field, Lockheed Martin will pay for that.
Start working on that.
So, that's where a lot of people do that.
Again, the networking is important.
Especially for people who are new to any company.
There's that need for people to say, hey, you're part of us.
We recognize that.
And Lockheed Martin really does have a strong stance on volunteer work.
When I was working in Orlando, we would, like a pack of us, took on repainting some kind of rehabilitation center.
We painted like five buildings all one afternoon, all one Saturday.
And we all got out there, blue, blue, blue, everybody.
So, we do a lot of that.
This is a little bit, this is new hires.
But these are new hires.
They're thinking, yeah, I'm a technical person.
But I really think maybe what I want to do is to have a little more control.
I'm thinking, I don't really...
The path you can take as a technical person, if nobody's told you, and this is typical in the government too, is you can go down a path of being an individual contributor and stay technical.
And go your heights that way.
Or you can kind of veer, I'm a technical person.
I understand all the, you know, the innuendos of technology.
But I think I want to go into management and control money and control people.
Well, if you have a higher level degree, they often expect you to head in that direction.
That's true.
We'll get to all that.
We'll get to that.
But it is something that you want to start thinking about.
If you think, even at the beginning, that you're thinking management.
Because we have, in this program, again, when I was in Orlando, we had people that would sign up for that almost right out of college.
And they would start working that path.
They get networked very quickly.
So, they figure out, you know, who these people are right in the beginning.
And start working with them.
Grooming them is the word.
Start getting them ready for the management charm school and all.
Okay.
The key thing in this is now you're not so much into a dive down like you were maybe in academia.
A little more broad perspective.
You might be an information assurance person.
But you might be also computer networking.
And you're interested in the gig because that's something that's big to the Department of Defense.
So, you kind of take your range out.
You still have your dive down expertise.
But you're kind of getting broader.
So, there's a variety of disciplines we're probably looking for there.
Emphasizing solutions.
Now, that should be something that would come to you almost as a natural strength coming out of academia.
Everything you did was about solving problems.
So, that should be a strength you bring to any corporation.
So, it's just a matter of establishing in their minds that you have that strength.
Okay.
Here's something that I found different because I was kind of a work-by-myself person.
And when I was in the CIA, I ran programs by myself.
And before that, I was teaching in Florida.
And I did that by myself.
So, it took me a while to get used to the idea of a team mentality.
But with Lockheed Martin especially, and you'll find different corporations, different stances on this.
Working with a team is important.
Now, be wary because working with a team doesn't mean you lay down and don't take any credit for what you're doing.
And you've got to be careful not to fall into that.
Because sometimes that, you know, you hear team, you think, okay, well, now I can't take any credit.
So, you have to kind of walk on that edge carefully.
But they certainly do emphasize, you know, a good team player has helped organize this and that.
These are the things they're looking for is that you've reached out to other people.
Good outreach.
Talks to a lot of people.
People network.
Those things will come up in your evaluations every year.
So, those are things we're looking for.
Okay, and then there's the, quote, non-technical skills.
I contend, again, that you probably have a lot of these.
Because there's no way you could have gotten through most of your graduate students through any kind of a dissertation or five or six, or four courses, whatever you're doing at a load, and not have done many of these things, such as presenting.
Time management, resource management, that kind of stuff.
Listening will become more important to you.
That's part of that team mentality.
Is not just hearing the first sentence that the person says, but following through on everything they say.
Bye.
So, this is especially important if you're going to be out in the government face.
Working with them as a customer.
True?
You want to be listened to.
It's all about the presentation of the message.
Yes, okay.
This is a very interesting gentleman, as in the serious external advisory board, who's from NRO.
Good person for you also to network with.
Negotiating.
Again, you'll see I'll give you some tips on power moves on how to make sure that your presence is known in a non-obnoxious way.
So, that's just my style.
Everybody has different styles, but you have to go with what you're dealt with.
And project leadership, of course, is an important thing.
That is really the way in Lockheed Martin to get your claim to glory, is to run a big program.
Now, we're talking... I'm on a program now that's a billion dollar program.
We're talking big programs.
When I was in CIA running R&D programs, they were a million dollars.
So, they're talking big programs where you're dealing with a big government agency doing a major task for them.
Keep those in mind.
Did I skip too fast?
Okay, here's this.
Again, you're coming in, you're a new college graduate, but you're interested in management, you think.
So, here's how we work it out.
We have these rotations.
They last between six months to a year.
You're actually brought into the business.
You're given some responsibility.
You probably aren't running it.
I'm sorry.
So, I do know some ELDPs that have those ambitions right from the start.
So, you just have to kind of tell them, well, you're maybe not quite ready to run the whole company yet.
So, basically, you're just learning about the different parts of the business.
We had rotations like security is a good one.
People want to rotate through that.
They want to know maybe six months to a year about security.
So, they like to rotate through that a lot.
So, our enterprise level security office has a lot of people that rotate through it just to learn the business.
And likewise, computer networking.
Or you could work on a program.
If you had your clearances, you could go out to like a CIA program and work with them there for a year.
Good way to learn the ropes.
Also, network to the people that are in leadership positions.
You're given an opportunity to present maybe the description of what the program did this week.
So, you're given different opportunities to brief.
They also have these conferences.
And I know from my younger recent college graduate friends that this is a great group.
They have a good time.
They usually have it in D.C., these big conferences.
And they get an ample chance to do hands-on exercises to build their leadership skills.
Plus, they go out and do some tourist activities and some nightclub hopping.
They have a good time.
And they really bond to each other.
That group becomes very important to each other.
Because they've acknowledged up front they're trying to go up the management chain.
And it is competitive.
So, they've kind of built this rapport with each other.
And our hope is that they won't be quite as backstabbing as they might have been otherwise.
Truth and politics.
And they get to work with some of the leaders.
The leaders make a point of running a little workshop with them.
So, there's some hands-on, handshaking, some of that stuff.
So, that's important to do.
We do pay for a master's program in Orlando.
I think it was Terence Lear Politech Institute.
It might be Carnegie Mellon up in the D.C.
area.
So, I don't know.
But, you know, it's basically online.
Maybe you have to appear at the campus at certain points to do something.
But it's a good degree.
It's a good technical degree.
So, we encourage that and pay for that.
Plus, there's other in-house stuff going on.
Again, community service is just a big cultural thing with Lockheed Martin.
Okay, you've been there five to eight years.
You were a recent college graduate.
Maybe you have your master's by now because you've gone through that previous program.
This is where you are really groomed.
We know you want to head towards management.
You've proven some capacity.
You have some technical depth in the area.
Maybe you've had enough of those rotations to know different areas because we want breadth.
So, you do want a demonstrated competence in one specialty.
Like, IA would be great.
Stay with that.
Is that your strong suit?
Stay with it.
That's one where you need a lot of technical depth.
It's not something that you can learn in a year and be really good at.
There's a zillion products out there.
You need to know how programs are using the products.
Besides all the more esoteric, if you get an R&D, you need to know how to work with those newer ideas that are coming in and being responsive to the government in terms of what they want for R&D projects from you.
We do something called internal R&D, and Wendy will talk a little bit more about that.
But we invest Lockheed Martin money on R&D projects.
So, if you come in and you want to work R&D projects, remember there's an...
And most big corporations will put some of their own money to internal R&D.
But to sell those babies, you have got to make a case that somebody in the government is going to pick that up and is going to love it.
So, you have to have a sponsor in the government almost from the get-go.
But that's something you'll find on a program.
You work a program, you start handshaking, you're talking to these different people, keep working your network.
That's how it works.
You can't stay insular.
In academia, you can stay a little insular.
I did before I got a PhD in graph theory.
Boy, that was a really good place to stay insular.
I could stay in my room and play with graphs all day.
Work 10 hours writing code.
Never have to talk to another person.
It's easy to stay insular.
But you need to get out.
You need to use those people skills.
The bottom line is really Lockheed Martin culture.
I would not say this is the same for MITRE.
I won't say it's the same for NRO.
I'm just saying look and find out what the culture is.
This is something I grabbed right from their slide.
So I know it's part of their culture.
They don't even think about it.
They just automatically, we want people like this.
And yeah, they're good attributes.
But, you know, a different corporation may not emphasize it.
Self-confidence Lockheed Martin actually always goes over to aggressive.
And in your face.
You have to watch with them.
They can be that way.
So initiative is a key thing.
Of course, you can't step on somebody's toes by having too much initiative.
There's a lot of gains here.
But on the surface, this is what they're asking for.
Communications, key.
The whole networking.
Stating clearly what you mean is very important.
Again, they do some more rotations and things like that.
The idea now is to give these people that have been here five to eight years some real meat.
Maybe they're running a subpart of a program.
So a big program for the government.
Or maybe they're the deputy of somebody else that's running a major part of a program.
But they're being given some actual sink their teeth into work.
And when it comes, you get an evaluation once a year.
When it comes to their evaluations, they'll be evaluated on that.
And, you know, they get a good score.
Then they say, oh, we really have groomed the right person here.
So then they start thinking about sending them to some Carnegie Mellon or something else.
You know, grooming school for leadership.
That's the way it goes.
Lots of mentoring comes in here.
People are really good about this.
There's a lady who runs the whole engineering part.
She takes time off to be a mentor for a cadre of about ten people.
It's that important to her.
That is just a key thing with her.
That she will make sure that she helps ten youngish people move up the ranks the easiest way.
As easy as possible.
Okay.
Well, so I'm fairly new to Lockheed Martin.
So I'm going to give you insights from my perspective, which I was in academia.
I got a Ph.D.
in abstract math.
And then I got a job at SPAWAR.
Because my Ph.D.
was actually in something related to cryptography.
And so they wanted some research done at the time.
And I managed to help them out with that some.
So I was in the government for a short period of time.
And then I started working for a small company.
And during the path that I kind of wove my way through, I discovered a few things.
One of the major things is project confidence.
If you don't know what anybody's talking about, just project.
Like you are a knowing person.
You have confidence in yourself.
Even if you don't quite understand what they're talking about, perhaps you can ask the pertinent questions so that you can figure it out.
Perhaps you might need to go home and do some research on the web.
But it's really important that you don't just say, oh, I have no idea what you're talking about and not listen.
I talked to a young person at Lockheed Martin who was getting a master's degree recently.
And she was a little overwhelmed because people started coming to her with expectations.
Like she should know this piece of information or that piece of information.
And she was really overwhelmed because some people think, oh my God, no, I don't have any idea.
And they just don't think about it.
But if you have a higher degree, part of what you're learning, getting your higher degree, is how to think, how to find pieces of information.
Other people haven't had that background.
And they don't know what they're doing.
And they don't know how to get this information.
And when you find this information for them by going and searching on the internet, going to the library, they think you're working miracles.
But basically, from getting this degree, you're just becoming a smart person.
You're finding out where to get information, how to make computations if that's what's needed.
And you're just basically, you know, showing that you can do the job no matter what.
The working miracles thing, I touched on a little bit.
Some people think you're working miracles when you look things up.
There's another aspect of it.
I have a really good friend who actually works miracles all the time.
This is basically when the customer says, I want you to come up with this solution.
I'm only giving you X thousands of dollars and two days and or, you know, a month.
And I want you to come up with this really incredible solution.
Well, sometimes you just got to do that.
If, for example, an art or workshop, they don't give you hardly any money.
They cut all the money after they've started the project.
They expect you to do incredible things with very little money and no help.
And if you can do that, you can basically make yourself a career.
Because once you have established that you can work miracles, whether it's having to work hard for a little while so that you establish that you're a competent, dependable person, then they're ready to give you money later.
And my friend is finding that out as we speak.
There is an issue, though, if you want to do research.
I like to do research.
I mean, I'm an abstract mathematician.
And the way I got into this is I'm a smart person.
I know how to look things up.
I can figure things out.
I don't have a lot of background.
I'm picking up a lot of background.
So customers, you know, I don't know the area as well as some, or I didn't.
I've been in the area now like six years, so I picked up a lot.
But one thing I found when you want to do research and when I was working for the government is there's not a lot of research dollars.
So how many of you are getting higher level degrees?
One of you?
Two of you?
Definition of higher level?
Higher level being...
Masters or above.
Okay.
So how many of you think you want to do research?
A couple.
Well, okay.
So that's my whole point.
And the rest of the talk will be what you have to do to be able to do research.
When I got into the government working for SPAWAR, I was in one of those rotational programs where you work three months on one project and then they switch you to another project for three months.
And then you kind of pick which group you want to be in.
And well, the first week I was there, this gentleman came up to me and started going on and on about how I had to bring in money.
Now in pure math, we don't...
You don't bring in money.
We don't bring in money.
You know, we rarely care about the practical aspects of what we're doing.
We don't have to, you know...
We basically teach and do research and that's about it.
So I was a little overwhelmed.
So I'm not sure about how things work here, but if you get the option or the opportunity to make contacts with people through conferences, if you get the opportunity to assist with writing proposals, make sure you get some skills there.
I was totally OBE.
I had no idea what I was doing.
I mean, who even is funding research?
Well, the folks funding research are ARDA, DARPA, AFRL, HSARPA now, basically government agencies.
NSF.
We can get a little bit.
Oh, we can get NSF money?
Yeah .
Oh, nice.
Well, learn something new every day.
So you need to know your customer.
If you have a chance to meet these people, take it.
I mean, you need to have contacts, you need...
Basically, you need to know how to get money.
And one thing is the customers tend to want immediate results these days.
I don't know.
It could be different in a little while, but right now they want immediate results.
So, for example, in Lockheed Martin, there's some internal R&D money.
But since the turnaround time is so short, the way to get around that is to say, oh, well, we can have interim deliverables.
We can do spiral development, things like that, which definitely is helpful.
So here are my thoughts on convincing people to give you money, which it's taken me a long time to come up with these.
I know in computer science you tend to write more papers, have more publications, write more research grants and things, which you don't do as much in pure math.
So if you can get into that, definitely do it.
Make contacts, know your customer.
You're going to write some software or you're going to come up with a solution, a system solution for AFRL.
Learn as much as you can about the Air Force.
Find somebody who works for the Air Force and get them on your team so that they can give you insights into what the needs are of your customer, what their environment is, do they have legacy systems that you need to be able to interact with, what are their biases.
The other thing is I've discovered that every year there's some pithy new phrase.
So I'm sure you've all heard of defense in depth.
That one's stuck around for a long time.
This year it's power to the edge.
The government's thinking they want their end user, the guy on the battlefield, to be able to wirelessly connect to some guy.
He may be in Korea and you've got to go through a satellite, which is slow.
The bandwidth is not all that reliable.
Things could shut off at any minute, especially with wireless.
There are a lot of issues.
And we don't even want to talk about that.
Things could be classified.
So somehow he has to be able to authenticate himself to this server way over here in the U.S.
from South Korea or North Korea or wherever he happens to be.
And it's like, oh my God.
So the last few years they've been wanting that kind of solution.
But last year it was technology to the edge.
And this year it's power to the edge.
So it changes every year.
So you have to have contacts in the government who are going to let you know what this year's pithy phrase is.
Or if you're really good, you come up with this year's pithy phrase.
You convince somebody that, gee, this should be this year's pithy phrase.
And then go from there.
So it's probably not 20 minutes, but that's...
Any questions?
That wasn't 20 minutes?
That was great.
But anyway, if you have questions, I'd be happy to answer them because there could be things I haven't thought of.
What's the best way to get your resume noted at Lockheed Martin?
Oh, at Lockheed Martin?
One way is to make contacts with folks like me and Kate.
Another way is...
Well, they have a system where you can go to their website and just put it in.
Yeah, I've done that.
They prefer you to do that.
There's very little...
HR is a very strong institution.
Well, the problem with Lockheed Martin is it's really large.
There's 125,000 when they acquired us two years ago.
So, it's really getting your...
Well, right now is a good time for information security.
Right now is a great time for information security because Lockheed Martin is pushing towards getting into the information security realm.
Before, well...
So, I think of information assurance, which is not quite information security.
It's kind of information security plus some high-level stuff, which is called information assurance.
And they're just starting a big initiative where everybody in Lockheed Martin is trying to grab their piece of information assurance pie.
So, if you can get in...
How do you feel about...
Where would you like to live, here or...
No, not here.
Well, actually, I go to State University and I'm getting my Master's in Information Assurance and Computer Engineering.
Okay.
And I have a Navy background and a clearance.
Oh.
It's sort of like I'm going, hello.
Yeah.
And no one's...
Where do you live, did you say?
Well, right now I live in Iowa, but that's only because...
Okay.
People get to the D.C.
area.
They have these power dinners all the time where they ask their peer people to come in.
Okay.
They're advertising on the radio.
I mean, it's...
Well, just not Iowa.
I know.
Because, you know...
But here in the D.C.
area at all, they have these dinners and, you know, Lockheed Martin people, managers, rotate through them.
It's just...
Right.
Well, I've even...
Grabbing resumes.
Well, it's Career Fair and I've applied online to Lockheed Martin and it's...
They prefer to go through online.
But the HR people in Lockheed Martin are a particularly powerful institution.
So, they do not...
Other than VPs who might say, I have a friend or somebody I work with in the airport, a lot of it is through online.
I'm from San Diego and we actually there prefer word of mouth.
And, yeah, here's this really smart person I know who would be really good for this position.
But that's...
We were only recently acquired, so...
That's the culture.
Yeah.
Haven't been...
Yeah.
There's been a lot of talk the last couple of months about women in science and engineering and technology field.
Yeah.
I think the question is probably directed more to Dr.
Cherry in the sense of when you're doing training, development and mentoring, you're at Lockheed Martin having to get specifically geared towards women or what are some of the insights about the culture for women?
Actually, in our group what we found, we kind of did a demographic study on who was staying around the longest, who was leaving the quickest.
The group that we really found was our weakest spot was African-American males left the quickest.
Like, I don't know what that was about, but...
Yeah, women have the women's network.
And I know...
It's there.
There's an initiative this year to become more diverse in Lockheed Martin, and that includes women, promoting women in the business place.
So, this would be a good year to get in to Lockheed Martin.
Yeah.
So, the topic of clearance is how many... is clearance required for most jobs?
Yes .
Yeah, right now we have a program where if you're not quite cleared, you sit around and do random tasks for...
That's right.
No, that's a good time to work on your masters.
That's what people do.
They finish up degrees.
They finish up PhDs.
They just knock them out.
You get to be in control of yourself.
Right, and they'll pay you while you're doing it.
That's right.
When you be online, just book it.
Okay.
Yeah, I'll just give a little bit, and then we have to be out of here by a quarter after or something.
Yeah, 11.20.
I'll stay here.
Okay, slightly different path.
So, we'll see.
If you're thinking that you want to stay technical for the rest of your life, and you want to get as high as you can, because you'll get to a point in your life where the technical part is cool, but I really want to be controlling things, not because you're a power freak,
but because you have these ideas you'd like to see them followed through on.
There's something frustrating about having a good thought that dies in your hands because you don't have the clout to push it to the next level.
So , there's a couple things you can do.
If you wanted to stay and go kind of to the top of a technical non-management track, you can do things.
Right now I'm a Chief Technologist of Information Assurance.
Wendy's a Deputy Chief Technologist, Information Assurance.
You can do things like that.
You can become, when I was in CIA, we had roles like Chief Scientist, Senior Fellows.
All of those are awards.
You know, it's like having a title saying you've gotten to the top of your career, technical career, in the corporate world.
That means you don't really want to do any of the management thing.
Now, if you want to do some management thing, then this is more specific to Lockheed Martin, but there will be counterparts in any corporation.
Then you want to think about things like being a CTO.
Lockheed Martin's CTO probably had a Bachelor's in Engineering and then probably went more through the MBA to get that culminating degree.
So, just letting you see where the split starts to happen in the corporate world.
CIOs, that's another one.
Joe was probably Engineering and then probably some kind of Master's in Business or something related to that.
MIS, Management Information Systems, seems to be acceptable too if you want to go a higher degree, but you want to stay more in management.
Technical Directors, that's a thing we have in Lockheed Martin.
We have things called lines of businesses, like the geospatial.
We have people interested in the satellite world.
And we have lines of business geared to that.
So, each of those will have a Technical Director that stays focused in that line of business.
So, if you have a wide breadth and you're an IT kind of person, you probably can pretty much fit into any of those lines of business.
So, there's something to think about.
VPs, that would be the next level up.
VP Schubert was the VP of Engineering.
Well, he's a Purdue graduate.
Remember, we had that talk.
So , Schubert, yes, you got it for Schubert on that one.
So , he's now the VP of all the programs that are being run.
So, he overlooks the programs.
And when he senses a program is going down the tubes, which is not any of our programs with NRO, oh no.
But if another agency was having problems with us, he gets on top of that fast.
So, he's political and technical.
But he's probably not the one writing the code.
And he's probably not the one reading the books or going to RSA 2005.
But he is probably trusting he has maintained his technical breadth, so that when a technical person comes in and explains what the real issues are, he understands that.
And that's key.
If you want to get into management level and you want to keep that, you have to keep a breadth.
Because you're going to be hit with things, like Wendy said, all of a sudden you're going to be the expert in everything.
And they're going to expect that from you.
But you're going to have to trust your technical people to feed things up to you.
So, that's how that all works.
People network paramount.
You just have to spend time doing that.
I read someplace, if you're going to lunch by yourself, stop doing that.
Grab somebody because there will be at least two or three minutes of some conversation about work.
And you will catch something out of that.
Stop going to lunch by yourself.
Those days of doing ten hours of coding with that machine, you've got to get out of that.
And that took me a while to get used to that.
Because sometimes I just like lunch by myself to be down time and just kind of recollect my energies.
But sometimes you just have to play that game a little bit.
Team building is valued in Lockheed Martin.
That's a big thing.
You know why?
I think a lot of it's a big thing is because there aren't too many management slots.
So everybody has to more or less learn to be on the lower level.
And so they better be team players because we can't have a lot of malcontent going on there.
Or we're making those few managers very stressed out.
So that's just my gut feeling on what the real politics is there.
Mentors versus advocates.
Does that make any difference to you?
They do to me.
What's a mentor?
Why do you get mentors early on?
This is where I started to get into it.
Show you the ropes.
Yeah , so what does mentoring do?
That is not an advocate.
An advocate is later on in your career.
Anybody know the difference?
Advocate promotes you?
Yeah.
They're out there singing your song.
It's like, oh, you need that?
Kate can do that.
He's not coming back or she's not coming back and saying, Kate, this is how you do it.
Oh, Kate can do that.
That's just dropping your name.
So early on you want a mentor.
Explains the culture.
Explains what things you should be doing.
Who you should be talking to.
But at some point you grow up.
And you get kind of like that.
I'm going to need to tell that.
I've heard that.
That's when you start looking for an advocate.
Somebody who sees your capabilities.
Sees your potential.
And is going to drop your name.
And that's important to find those people.
And maybe your mentor will become your advocate.
A mentor, in a sense, would be your net to catch you.
Whereas an advocate, you can let the advocate down and then you're toast with the advocate.
Unless you put the advocate's reputation on the line.
Yep, yep, that's a good point.
Yep, that's a good point.
You have to be playing this game and thinking about the other person and what they're getting out of your relationship.
That's not always a good point.
Okay, some things that I know as a young technical person.
Craft your resume.
Revisit that every three months.
Because you'll forget what cool things you're doing.
And keep reorganizing it.
Give it another structure.
Maybe a more dominant thread is coming to the top.
Maybe programming languages.
At one point, that was something I highlighted.
I said, I don't know why I'm doing that much anymore.
Nobody really cares I know Java.
Okay, so just keep rewriting your resume.
This is something that I read in a book that stuck with me.
It's called Intellectual Capital.
And it was making the point that, you know, we're out of the factory model.
We're now selling our IQs.
Right people.
And that's the important commodity for a corporation.
Is the people and that's the real asset.
Is the brains they're walking around with.
And the connection of those brains to other brains to find the missing pieces that they need to get the job done.
That's the important thing.
Okay, point was, if you're at a company, in three months you don't have something neat.
Tidbit to put on your resume.
It may not be the right job for you.
Now right now I know it's a little hard to jump around.
It's not dot com days.
But it is something you need to be thinking about.
And don't wait for somebody to make it happen for you.
That's why you get a mentor early on and an advocate.
You say, you know, I really, I heard about this course I should be taking.
I'm thinking management.
Do you have any management courses that I could be taking?
They'll send you to it.
But you got to let your feelings know.
And you got to get out there.
You got to pound pavement for yourself.
Your professors aren't with you anymore.
You got to go out and do a lot of that work for yourself.
So that's something you'll find out.
Those were the, remember we talked about these are just skills that are Lockheed Martin skills.
But you got to understand we came from a group that were building airplanes.
And there's a lot of that Air Force kind of bravado in it.
So it's a culture that came down, which is different from a CIA culture.
Which is playing a different game.
Which is different from an NRO culture.
Which is different from an Oregon kind of culture.
Which is definitely different from academic.
So you just have to be aware.
Keep your ears open, eyes open.
Oh, this is just something I had to tag on.
Because I had a good boss.
And she was a good advocate for me.
And she told me this.
She says, oh yeah, I hear what you're saying Kate.
Don't ever bring me a problem without bringing me the solution.
Then I'll say you're a wizard.
I'll fix it for you.
She says, you bring a boss a problem.
And you don't tell them how to fix it.
They're going to screw it up.
They're going to go down the wrong path.
They don't understand the problem at all.
But they're full of, got to get this done.
Got to get this done now.
They'll do it.
But you're going to be sorry.
So just keep that in mind.
That is probably the one thing that has gotten me farther through life than anything.
Okay, I've always been intrigued with these power books.
I don't know if this went through here like it went through CIA for instance.
But there's a bunch of books on power.
And how to maintain power in a situation.
How to project power.
So here are some of the things I just grabbed from a recent article.
Keep coming back.
You can find these articles all over the place.
Flexibility and keep moving.
That's a strength.
That doesn't mean that you have to be flitty about your technology.
You still develop your depth there.
But don't feel that you have to stay in one little desk and just keep pounding away and doing your work and not reaching out.
You need to be flexible.
Okay, that job goes away.
You better be thinking about the next job.
Don't be there like, oh my goodness.
I no longer have this job in two weeks.
Now what do I do?
Things like that happen.
I mean Lockheed Martin down in Orlando, they would do layoff to the technical people.
Anti-submarine warfare is no longer in.
So what do you do next?
That's not a pithy statement anymore.
I'm a big one about getting out of the box.
And I think probably anybody who has a good grounding in academia will feel comfortable with that role.
You know, just kind of stepping back.
Question all your assumptions.
Question all the assumptions of the people that have given you assumptions.
You don't have to be arrogant or nasty about that.
Just step back and say, well, have you thought about this?
And sometimes they go, oh, I've been.
You're right.
And sometimes they'll say, well, you're an idiot.
Of course that's not right.
But it doesn't hurt.
Accept diversity.
Again, that is a key thing with Lockheed Martin.
But I don't mean just diversity, skin color, or race.
It's diversity on where you were raised, parts of the country, the way people think about things.
Some people are aggressive, some people aren't.
Just go with the flow.
Not everybody is like you.
Thank God.
Just be thankful for that.
No, we're not all the same.
We don't all demonstrate our feelings the same way.
Some people are tight and you're never going to know how they feel.
Some people are weepy and they're going to get the job done too.
So there you go.
That's how you have to deal with people.
This gets more important probably when you're new to a company or corporation.
You kind of go with the flow.
Now I find it's a little bit more important to me to have ideas of what maybe in five years I want to be here.
And it doesn't have to be day by day.
But in five years I see myself in more of a management role.
Or I see myself working with this government company in this area.
Try to have some game plan for yourself.
Yeah, you may not keep to it.
But it's better than just kind of letting management flop you all around.
It's just more satisfying to build kind of goals for yourself and go for them.
Pick good models.
This is somebody in the CIA told me when I was floundering around trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself.
And he said, hey, who do you respect here?
And I said, well, I respect this guy Joe blah, blah, blah.
He says, well, find out how he got there.
Just look at his career.
What did he do to get there?
Well, that's good.
I had lunch with Joe.
So that served two purposes.
Don't eat by yourself.
And figure out what it did that made him get to the place he got.
I'm not going to follow that path verbatim.
But it gives you some idea of what to do with yourself.
Alliances.
And Jennifer has kind of hit on a point here.
Yes, you need to build alliances.
Okay, here's where I get interactive.
Are alliances set in glue or set in cement?
What does alliance imply from the power folks?
Anybody on that one?
Take a grab one.
Jennifer, you kind of hit it.
I think it's ties.
But the ties can be flexible ties.
And they can be sort of mutating.
Sometimes an alliance is going to be set up with this structure.
It's like a solid tie here and then it rearranges.
Exactly right.
And that's a key thing.
That's part of the flexibility.
Don't get feeling that somebody's abandoned you because all of a sudden they're more interested in this other group of people.
That's just alliances shifting in and out.
That happens.
That's part of the flexibility.
You have to get used to that.
You will find if you have a good advocate or mentor, they hang in there with you.
Unless, you know, like you said, when you get to the point, you know, when you're ten years down your career and you're a solid person and you miss doing something for somebody who's your advocate, they may start advocating somebody else.
That doesn't mean they don't like you.
It's just, you know, they say, okay, let me down.
Declare your identity.
I found this to be a key thing.
And this is probably a little more down your career.
Just to stand up and say, I'm new in this program.
I'm taking care of the IA part that has to do with strategy.
That's my domain.
Anything comes up in that area, bring it to me.
And it just helps to say that.
If you have a sense of what your identity is.
Because people don't know.
And they may be stepping on your toes, not even realizing.
They may be stepping on their toes because of pains in the butt, but they may really just not know what you're trying to do.
And it just helps settle people down.
They know what everybody's relative position is in the hierarchy and what everybody's handling.
So it's just something to keep in mind there.
Patient, needless to say.
Okay, the brutality.
I'm not good at brutal.
But if you need to have a good hissy fit, do it once.
Let them know you can do it.
And don't do it a lot.
And that's like, you know, you can talk to your boss's boss like once.
But it better be damn good what you're going to talk to him about.
You don't keep doing that.
So basically those are the things that kind of clubbed me over the head.
And I think that's what SPAP wanted.
So hopefully between Wendy with more of the R&D and me having hung around with the government a little bit longer, you'll see what it's like out there.
And give you some things to think about.
And maybe you're doing these things.
You got them under your wing.
And maybe it gave you a little bit of food for thought.
Any questions on that?
We have time for a couple more questions.
Yeah.
Yeah, please.
What's the management structure there?
I work for the government now.
And it's kind of surreal.
But I regularly have conversations with my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss.
You know, and it's just bizarre.
They have people that have been there a while.
So they don't know what to do with them.
And they stick them in another layer of management.
They do create level of management.
That's good.
I won't answer for the government.
And maybe Mark might want to do a little bit.
I don't know how he's feeling about that.
But as far as Lockheed Martin, we start with, like, we have different companies.
We have acquired a lot of companies.
So the major, I guess there's probably five major companies.
And they each have a president.
Then the president will have maybe five VPs.
And then underneath VPs are directors.
Like, I'm hoping to end my career as a technical director.
I don't see me going to a VP.
And certainly not to a president.
But, you know, that's okay.
I'll be happy.
I'll be technical.
I'll be out to RSA 2005 still.
I'll be able to have all that cotton and get cool T-shirts.
They don't get cool T-shirts.
You get up to that level, you don't get cool T-shirts anymore.
Or scarves with neurons on it.
I wouldn't get that if I was up at that level.
But, I don't know, you want to explain a little bit of government?
Why don't you come up here?
Twenty years with the government, the only advice I give is that regardless of that culture, whoever your supervisor is or whoever his boss is, no one likes to be surprised and no one likes to be embarrassed.
So, if you have an opportunity to interact with your supervisor's supervisor or further up the chain, it would be nice to make sure that your boss is well aware of that and also share the credit with your boss.
That's good for Lucky Martin too.
Your responsibility is to do the mission, support the mission, and support your bosses trying to get them promoted so you can move into that slot.
He's a smart man.
Is it a relatively flatter structure than government itself?
I mean, if you're doing government contracting or do they adopt the same structures as the government?
I would say it's not too different really because when we have, you know, then a director will have maybe his hierarchy.
Like I'm coming into a deputy director position and I'll have maybe 17 engineers under me, 20.
I think in Lockheed Martin to be able to be called a manager you have to manage over 20 people.
So the lower level is probably 20 people.
Well, this is all the technical levels.
There's another thing, entity, kind of like the presidential entity at Lockheed Martin called corporate.
And they have their own structure there.
So once you're, you know, a president of one of these five companies, the next step would be to metamorphose into corporate.
I think so.
Well, like all things go to corporate and die there, right?
So we have to end the class right at that point.
Thank you, Wendy.