Patrick Ewing, a successful engineer from the class of 1985, shows his Penn State pride still to this day. He says, “I’ve never stopped creating Penn State memories. During my time on campus I had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people, who became life long friends. To this day we still make it a point to go to Penn State football games together every chance we get.”
Patrick graduated from Penn State with a degree in electrical engineering. Since then he started working with RCA Corporation in the mid 1980s, which through a series of mergers is now known as Lockheed Martin Corporation. Hard work and passion for seeking out challenging positions helped him to gain increased responsibility and keep moving up in his career. It even earned him the award of Engineer of the Year for Lockheed Martin MS2 in 1998. Patrick has served as a program manager and led several different innovative efforts.
Patrick graduated from Penn State with a degree in electrical engineering. Since then he started working with RCA Corporation in the mid 1980s, which through a series of mergers is now known as Lockheed Martin Corporation. Hard work and passion for seeking out challenging positions helped him to gain increased responsibility and keep moving up in his career. It even earned him the award of Engineer of the Year for Lockheed Martin MS2 in 1998. Patrick has served as a program manager and led several different innovative efforts.
Today he is the Director, Mission Systems Engineering Center, and isresponsible for leading a center of excellence for system engineering within Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training. His team consists of 2000 incredibly talented engineers across the country. They work on various projects that cross between land, air, sea and underwater systems. They focus on delivering all of their program milestones to ensure each of their customers are receiving innovate system engineering solutions and delivering on the products they need to best protect and serve the country. When asked what a typical day was like for him he said, “Any given day for me personally could include brainstorming technical answers for some really exciting combat systems engineering issues, to then changing gears and applying my business acumen towards financial strategy and business growth. Weaved throughout it all, I work with my team to ensure we keep current with the right technical skill mix, talent development and organizational direction, to keep us performing with excellence. Given that not one day is the same, the mere diversity of the projects and the people make each day very exciting.”
With a job like this there is sure to be many challenges that come out. Patrick says “My most significant professional challenge was when I led a Lockheed Martin technical team, as the Chief Engineer for Ballistic Defense, that was responsible for shooting down an errant satellite in 2008. This satellite threatened to explode a full tank of hazardous fuel, which posed a danger to people and could have landed in a populated area. I was in charge of the rocket scientists that in just 42 days, were able to modify and test the system which then went to sea and successfully destroyed the satellite before re-entering into the atmosphere. I was very fortunate to have shared this intensely proud moment with many dedicated members on our team and was privledged to be selected to represent our team and receive our company’s highest employee honor.”
Check out the video of the successful mission! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDqNjnUNUl8!
As you can probably imagine this job can be very rewarding. Patrick finds that those rewards come in being able to mentor and teach talented engineers within the company. He explains, “It is inspiring to see the success of not only these people in their careers but also in the products they deliver to the end users in the military.”
By: Jill Mensch
With a job like this there is sure to be many challenges that come out. Patrick says “My most significant professional challenge was when I led a Lockheed Martin technical team, as the Chief Engineer for Ballistic Defense, that was responsible for shooting down an errant satellite in 2008. This satellite threatened to explode a full tank of hazardous fuel, which posed a danger to people and could have landed in a populated area. I was in charge of the rocket scientists that in just 42 days, were able to modify and test the system which then went to sea and successfully destroyed the satellite before re-entering into the atmosphere. I was very fortunate to have shared this intensely proud moment with many dedicated members on our team and was privledged to be selected to represent our team and receive our company’s highest employee honor.”
Check out the video of the successful mission! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDqNjnUNUl8!
As you can probably imagine this job can be very rewarding. Patrick finds that those rewards come in being able to mentor and teach talented engineers within the company. He explains, “It is inspiring to see the success of not only these people in their careers but also in the products they deliver to the end users in the military.”
By: Jill Mensch