Browsing by Subject "Air Traffic Control (ATC)"

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    Oral history interview with Gayle Spiess
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-14) Spiess, Gayle
    Gayle Spiess grew up in Minneapolis and attended Valparaiso University (in Indiana), graduating in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. She had worked for Sperry Univac one summer during college, then after graduating took a full-time professional position at Plant 8 (Eagan, MN) doing programming for a Navy ship project. She notes support from her direct supervisor as well as self-study in 16-bit assembler code, which she used for more than a dozen years. Her working group was stable for 3-4 years, even when she physically worked on a top secret project in Building 6 near the original Engineering Research Associates (ERA) plant in St. Paul. Back in Eagan, she worked on a Navy communication system (NAVMACS) and assisted with warship installations in Virginia, Japan, and Australia. Later she did programming with the high-level language ADA as well as C, which became the dominant programming language. A major responsibility was software for the air traffic control (ATC) group from 1993 to 2002 (eventually part of Lockheed Martin), then first-line management and project engineering for ATC (2002-7). She discusses recruitment and characteristics of successful project teams and managerial strategies for them. She also relates observations about changes in corporate culture with the Unisys merger, Loral acquisition, and Lockheed Martin purchase. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Lynne Anderson
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-11-12) Anderson, Lynne
    Lynne Anderson grew up in Moorhead, Minnesota, and graduated in 1985 with an electrical engineering degree from North Dakota State University. She joined Sperry (later Lockheed Martin) working at Plant 8 in Eagan, Minnesota (where she worked for 28 years). She joined an electrical engineering design group, and worked on a variety of military aircraft and avionics projects, including the F-4, P-3, P-4 and others. She offers a close description of the design and specification-writing processes, along with the design reviews that accompanied these projects. She discusses her experiences in working with male-heavy teams as well as the characteristics of effective project management. She rotated through several high-profile areas, including cost engineering, project engineering, and program management that gave her wide insight into Sperry/Lockheed projects. Much of her work involved proposal development and project management. Later programs she was involved with were the Q-70 and Joint Strike Fighter. She shares observations about the change in management style with Lockheed Martin’s ownership. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Patricia Westergren
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-11-09) Westergren, Patricia
    Patricia Westergren worked as a program manager for Sperry Rand Univac and successor companies, after graduating from the University of Minnesota, working in the Computer Systems Division and the Air Traffic Control Division. She discusses patterns and expectations about women’s career paths, which she upended after completing an executive training rotation and then going in to Marketing. Much of her work entailed contract negotiations with other corporate units and external companies. John Westergren, her husband, comments also on her career and his observations about company culture. They both discuss work-family balancing. Later in her career she managed software development for MedNet. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”