Huntsville’s Space & Missile Defense Symposium officially kicks off today, but women in the missile defense industry got a jump on the symposium with a sold-out Monday luncheon panel on women in defense. “Why we need diversity of thought to get to next-generation capabilities” was the topic. Haley Baker of WAFF-48 asked the questions and moderated the panel of:
Melissa Morrison-Ellis, program director, Raytheon Technologies
Jami Peyton, CEO, Canvas Inc., and vice chair - Small Business, Huntsville/Madison County Chamber Board of Directors
PeggyLee Wright, owner, The Company You Keep, and executive director, Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering Foundation
Here are some of the questions asked and the panelists’ answers (edited for space):
Q: Do you have to be an engineer to be in missile defense?
Jami Peyton: You don’t have to be an engineer but it helps. I’ve said many times to my husband that if I had to do it all over again, I would have definitely gone that route. But I think the most important thing to recognize is this: We need competence, we need people who are really willing to just dig in and learn their trade and their craft and be really good at what they do. We need all kinds of support positions across the board, whether that’s learning to be a great scheduler or supporting the strategic planning for the budget cycles on what we’re planning for down the road. Those don’t necessarily require an engineering degree.
Q: You have mentioned that you love events like this because you can bounce ideas off other people. Do you ever have situations where you do that with men and it’s not fraught?
PeggyLee Wright: This is just my experience. We as women have a tendency to think that we have to do all things and that we have to be perfect at all things that we do. And so we do it all. And we kick ass at it. But we don’t necessarily all the time want to share the struggles with one another that we’re going through, because I again, I’ll speak for myself. I sometimes don’t want you to know that I’m struggling with that. Because I’m doing a lot. I’ve got a lot of balls in the air.
The misters, y’all support each other. Like, ‘It was a rough day, you know, blah, blah, blah, I’m not going back.’ And that can be difficult, I think, for us sometimes to find our folks that we can tell the real deal. So for me, it’s opposite. With women, sometimes we can be a little guarded. And I want us not to be, because we learned so much from each other when we’re honest with each other about our struggles.
Q: Can you share someone that was a role model for you? Throughout your career that helped maybe pull you up instead of stepping on you.
A: Melissa Morrison-Ellis: One of the biggest role models I can recall was my pastor when I was growing up in Massachusetts. He’s the one that preached (the sermon) “Don’t sit on your gifts.” It’s about that skill set, that unique skill set that you have, that was put in you to put out into the world. And I believe in that with our technical capabilities. You know, whatever our career paths are, whatever your particular gift is, you’re all good at something that you’re doing. That’s why you do it every day. Right? And that’s why you chose that job.
Q: Since the inception of missile defense systems decades ago, how has that mission changed over the years?
A: PeggyLee Wright: Everything’s faster. We have faster response times. So I think that relying on technology, artificial intelligence, relying on cybersecurity is so much more prevalent now. And that has made us have to look to, I think, a younger, more diverse workforce that might look different and act differently. And at one point, I had a retired military colonel sitting next to someone that I had just freshly hired away from Amazon. And he came to work in flip flops and blue jeans and T shirt. And the retired military colonel wears ties every day. And I had to figure out how to make them be able to work together, because they both have very important jobs.
Q: You are all so passionate about what you do and you’re working with students and women. What do you love about your job?
A: Melissa Morrison-Ellis: I love the variety that my job brings to the table each and every day. I love challenges. I believe that I’m brought to jobs, maybe not necessarily that I want to be brought into. I think I have a knack for finding the messy. So bringing people together that feel that they have a skill set a unique talent that’s within them that’s needed for the mission. And I love to be able to draw that out of people to allow them to come to the table, get the job done, and be the very best them that they can be.
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