Doreen Nixon This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. Managing: Doreen Nixon moves up at Lockheed Martin MS2

   diversity.createweb.com/PRO/05 - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/15/2004   Last Visited: 12/28/2005

   Doreen Nixon moves up at Lockheed Martin MS2 | Read more Managing: Doreen Nixon moves up at Lockheed Martin MS2
   ...
   Doreen Nixon moves up at Lockheed Martin MS2
   
   As director of engineering integrity for Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors, she's unifying tech ops at six business sites
   
   Lockheed Martin's Doreen Nixon: a very rewarding balancing act. Lockheed Martin's Doreen Nixon: a very rewarding balancing act.
   
   Doreen Nixon's career has sailed right along as Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, MD) merged and reorganized to meet business needs. She joined a predecessor to the company as an engineer in 1983. Since then she's earned ever greater responsibility and moved up to her present post of director of engineering integrity for Lockheed Martin's Maritime Systems & Sensors (MS2) business. "Through it all, I've worked at the same location in Moorestown, NJ," she notes.
   
   MS2 is a Lockheed Martin business unit with six major sites: Moorestown, NJ; Syracuse, NY; Eagan, MN; Baltimore, MD; Manassas, VA and Akron, OH. Nixon frequently visits the other sites, which were acquired over the years from Martin Marietta, General Electric and IBM.
   ...
   "It's a very rewarding balancing act," Nixon says.
   ...
   Another important duty for Nixon is finding commonalities among the six sites. "The first part of getting to know someone is getting through the communications challenge. Are we really nodding our heads about the same thing or are we talking beyond each other," she asks.
   
   "I listen to the variations, sort through them and try to come up with a demo-cratic solution rather than a dictatorship solution," she says. "Capitalizing on unique strengths and viewpoints builds a strong team and yields great results."
   
   Exploring engineering Nixon grew up in Folcroft, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. All four of the children in her family went to college. The older ones chose teaching and business, but she wanted something different. A high school physics teacher encouraged her to explore engineering, and "I found that I liked it," she says.
   
   She went to Widener University (Chester, PA) where the teachers were very supportive. She helped start a SWE chapter on campus, and graduated with a BSCE in 1980, one of the vanguard of women entering engineering at the time.
   
   Pots of molten steel Her first job was at U.S. Steel's Fairless Works (Morrisville, PA). To inspect the mill, she climbed along overhead crane runways over crucibles of molten steel.
   
   After she proved she could do that job, she was rotated into another unit where she helped procure heavy equipment. Then she moved into design of support structures for new equipment. She was getting a great overview, but of an industry that faltered and failed.
   
   She quickly found another job with a consulting company doing bridge inspections. But after a short time a position opened up at RCA, now part of Lockheed Martin, in Moorestown, and she went back to design, working on radar systems.
   
   "I fell in love with design," she says.
   ...
   The baby was colicky, requiring a lot of attention, and Nixon realized she couldn't go back to work full time after her eight weeks of maternity leave. Her husband, an accountant based in Philadelphia, was too far away to offer emergency help. But her boss wrangled a part-time status for her, unusual at the time, and she worked on that basis for six months.
   
   She had two more children and worked part time for six months after each was born. "It's not a female issue, it's a family issue," she says.
   ...
   In 2002 Nixon helped set up a local sub-section of SWE at the Moorestown site.
   ...
   Nixon credits both herself and her company for her success at home and at work.

2. 2. Managing: Doreen Nixon moves up at Lockheed Martin MS2

   www.diversitycareers.com/artic - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 12/19/2005

   Doreen Nixon moves up at Lockheed Martin MS2
   
   As director of engineering integrity for Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors, she's unifying tech ops at six business sites
   
   Lockheed Martin's Doreen Nixon: a very rewarding balancing act. Lockheed Martin's Doreen Nixon: a very rewarding balancing act.
   
   Doreen Nixon's career has sailed right along as Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, MD) merged and reorganized to meet business needs. She joined a predecessor to the company as an engineer in 1983. Since then she's earned ever greater responsibility and moved up to her present post of director of engineering integrity for Lockheed Martin's Maritime Systems & Sensors (MS2) business. "Through it all, I've worked at the same location in Moorestown, NJ," she notes.
   
   MS2 is a Lockheed Martin business unit with six major sites: Moorestown, NJ; Syracuse, NY; Eagan, MN; Baltimore, MD; Manassas, VA and Akron, OH. Nixon frequently visits the other sites, which were acquired over the years from Martin Marietta, General Electric and IBM.
   ...
   "It's a very rewarding balancing act," Nixon says.
   ...
   Another important duty for Nixon is finding commonalities among the six sites. "The first part of getting to know someone is getting through the communications challenge. Are we really nodding our heads about the same thing or are we talking beyond each other," she asks.
   
   "I listen to the variations, sort through them and try to come up with a demo-cratic solution rather than a dictatorship solution," she says. "Capitalizing on unique strengths and viewpoints builds a strong team and yields great results."
   
   Exploring engineering Nixon grew up in Folcroft, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. All four of the children in her family went to college. The older ones chose teaching and business, but she wanted something different. A high school physics teacher encouraged her to explore engineering, and "I found that I liked it," she says.
   
   She went to Widener University (Chester, PA) where the teachers were very supportive. She helped start a SWE chapter on campus, and graduated with a BSCE in 1980, one of the vanguard of women entering engineering at the time.
   
   Pots of molten steel Her first job was at U.S. Steel's Fairless Works (Morrisville, PA). To inspect the mill, she climbed along overhead crane runways over crucibles of molten steel.
   
   After she proved she could do that job, she was rotated into another unit where she helped procure heavy equipment. Then she moved into design of support structures for new equipment. She was getting a great overview, but of an industry that faltered and failed.
   
   She quickly found another job with a consulting company doing bridge inspections. But after a short time a position opened up at RCA, now part of Lockheed Martin, in Moorestown, and she went back to design, working on radar systems.
   
   "I fell in love with design," she says.
   ...
   The baby was colicky, requiring a lot of attention, and Nixon realized she couldn't go back to work full time after her eight weeks of maternity leave. Her husband, an accountant based in Philadelphia, was too far away to offer emergency help. But her boss wrangled a part-time status for her, unusual at the time, and she worked on that basis for six months.
   
   She had two more children and worked part time for six months after each was born. "It's not a female issue, it's a family issue," she says.
   ...
   In 2002 Nixon helped set up a local sub-section of SWE at the Moorestown site.
   ...
   Nixon credits both herself and her company for her success at home and at work.