Future MDA, NASA, and military job loss (engineering, career)

[Charles]

Originally Posted by HB2HSV

Yup, I saw the beginning of Boeing's down fall from the inside first hand. They put these "losers" in charge of proposal writing and have produced some really low quality proposal ending up not winning any new contracts. In addition, they were not able to execute & deliver on big contracts they won, e.g., transformational satellites, etc., plus too many inter-divisional bickering.

If the NASA Ares program is canceled by Obama (... and all the tea leaf readings say it will be...), both Boeing HSV, Rocketdyne and ATK will loss its existing contract with NASA. This will put a lot of HSV engineers out of work, esp. with Boeing locally.

Ya, I have some old friends at Rocketdyne Canoga working J2X; they come to HSV once in a while. Probably won't be too good for the Rocket Factory either.

[macwell]

Obama wants domestic spending cuts in next budget

[Charles]

Originally Posted by macwell

Obama wants domestic spending cuts in next budget

From the above article:

"And since the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs would likely be shielded from such cuts, overtures toward trimming the deficit may hold more symbolic value than substance"

Nothing else in the article seemed relevant to Huntsville.

[DvlsAdvc8]

Obama will be skewered by Huntsville for any defense related cuts, and skewered if he doesn't.

[ionlife]

I'd just like Obama skewered in general.. thrilled me to see him give a human rights speech in China about the evils of censorship where no one there could see his speech... but then china owns us...

[Charles]

Originally Posted by DvlsAdvc8

Obama will be skewered by Huntsville for any defense related cuts....

Huntsville? What's a Huntsville?

Huntsville is a flea compared to the other pressures facing the Obama administration.

[friday13]

Originally Posted by Charles

Huntsville? What's a Huntsville?

Huntsville is a flea compared to the other pressures facing the Obama administration.

Yeah, but remember the Lyme tick, it disables you for life (Bush jr. has it)

[DvlsAdvc8]

Originally Posted by Charles

Huntsville? What's a Huntsville?

Huntsville is a flea compared to the other pressures facing the Obama administration.

That's my point. It doesn't matter. Even doing something beneficial to Huntsville isn't going to win him votes here.

[Yoo Shin]

Originally Posted by HB2HSV

Yup, I saw the beginning of Boeing's down fall from the inside first hand. They put these "losers" in charge of proposal writing and have produced some really low quality proposal ending up not winning any new contracts. In addition, they were not able to execute & deliver on big contracts they won, e.g., transformational satellites, etc., plus too many inter-divisional bickering.

If the NASA Ares program is canceled by Obama (... and all the tea leaf readings say it will be...), both Boeing HSV, Rocketdyne and ATK will loss its existing contract with NASA. This will put a lot of HSV engineers out of work, esp. with Boeing locally.

I too have been witnessing the erosion of a once great aerospace and defense firm, that has become.... I just don't know how to describe exactly. I finally reach the point where I am leaving the company along with many just before me, and many that are about to follow.

When you have 20 something year-olds with absolutely zero experience or understanding of technological and engineering concepts, attempting to explaining million dollar schedule and cost variances week after week, on major program elements to senior and executive management, with "tool error" or a good ol,' "uh I don't know", then something is seriously SERIOUSLY wrong.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by Yoo Shin

I too have been witnessing the erosion of a once great aerospace and defense firm, that has become.... I just don't know how to describe exactly. I finally reach the point where I am leaving the company along with many just before me, and many that are about to follow.

When you have 20 something year-olds with absolutely zero experience or understanding of technological and engineering concepts, attempting to explaining million dollar schedule and cost variances week after week, on major program elements to senior and executive management, with "tool error" or a good ol,' "uh I don't know", then something is seriously SERIOUSLY wrong.

Best wishes for your next career move. I recalled at one time every managers fear the most is being invited to a "VAR-party", that is where executive management conducts a "variance analysis review", and the only reason you were invited is to explain why your program is below a certain CPI and SPI of your earned value. Your career upward mobility is greatly dependent on "not" being invited to these reviews.

But somewhere along things changed. It became "okay" to greatly miss your CPI and SPI. Eventually significant program cost overruns led to cancellations by the government, but these PMs just get reassigned to screw up another program.

Last 10 years, Boeing's business model focused on being a largescale-system-integrator (LSI) and literally gave away any jobs that involve design or manufactur anything. So programs like the FCS, GMD, etc., become the model as we don't design anything or build anything, we'll just "integrate" everything. As result, it lays off many of world best & brightest engineers/scientists because when you don't design anything, you don't need the "know-how".