Skip to content

How Can Engineering Deans Prepare Students for Emerging 4th Industrial Revolution Aerospace Engineering Roles?

June 29th, 2022

13:00 UTC

Boeing is excited to work with the Global Engineering Deans’ Council in this webinar, to describe Engineering roles that are emerging in aerospace and the company, given the 4th Industrial Revolution.  This webinar will explore how Boeing and Engineering Schools can better prepare engineers for future roles and specializations, including Safety Engineer; Cybersecurity Engineering; Guidance, Navigation, and Control Engineer; Electrical Engineer, and Software Engineer.  We will explore possible future degrees, specializations, and connections to industry in these areas, such as internships and apprenticeships.  Please join us for the discussion.  

Presenters

Michael A. Fors, Ph.D., is Executive Leader of corporate division and business unit development at Boeing.  His team works to transform the business and develop workforces systematically as part of the 4th industrial revolution.  Before Boeing, he was an Executive Leader at Microsoft, digitally transforming Microsoft divisions.  Michael led a P&L comprised of 350 ex-CIO consultants, who digitally transform Microsoft customers.  Michael also led a business strategy team working across Microsoft divisions. Before Microsoft, Michael was Chief Learning Officer of Intel University.  Michael is an adjunct professor at Stanford University, Columbia University, and the University of Washington, teaching innovation, entrepreneurship, the Future of Work, and Leadership/Executive Development.  Michael is a member of the World Economic Forum, the Global Engineering Deans’ Council, ReWork America, & the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies.  Michael is Chairman of the Board for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, leading United Nations programs for post conflict and developing nations.

Laurette Lahey is the Boeing Functional Chief Engineer responsible for Flight Engineering; which includes ensuring technical excellence in Flight Engineering disciplines across the enterprise through technical roadmaps, workforce strategy and skill management teams, knowledge curation and continuous improvement. Lahey began her career in 1987 as an aerodynamics engineer for Boeing Military Aircraft tactical aircraft programs, gaining expertise in vehicle sizing and configuration synthesis and aerodynamics stability and control.  She subsequently held positions with increasing technical and leadership responsibilities on both commercial and military aircraft programs with roles spanning aircraft stability and control, flight and propulsion systems architecture and design, airworthiness, mishap investigation and system safety before transitioning to Flight Engineering functional and research and development roles. Lahey has a bachelor of science in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Oklahoma State University where she has served on the Industrial Advisory Board for the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Lahey is also an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and is a member in the Society of Automotive Engineers International and the Society of Women Engineers.

Greg Benn is the Boeing Functional Chief Engineer for Safety & Airworthiness Engineering. In this role, he is responsible for the development of capabilities and technical excellence for certification, product safety, investigative, and safety data analytics engineering. This includes development of technical strategy, enhanced capabilities such as model based certification and safety, knowledge curation, lessons learned/feedback loops, people development in the skill, and continuous improvement. Greg also leads the Enterprise Safety organization, specifically focused on the development of safety engineering capability, addressing enterprise wide product safety issues and the Boeing Global Services product safety team. Prior to this role, Greg was the Director for Verification, Safety & Certification for the New Mid-Market Airplane leadership team, where he was responsible for developing the safety & certification team and approach for the airplane, production and continued airworthiness. He has also served as the KC-46 Deputy Chief Program Engineer, the 787 Airplane Performance Chief Engineer and the 767 Safety, Certification and Performance leader. Greg began his career in 2001 in the Boeing Commercial Aircraft Product Development team as an aerodynamics engineer. This evolved to a series of roles on the 787 airplane development program including high and low speed aerodynamics, wind tunnel testing, systems design support and flight testing. Greg has a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado and a Master of Science in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.