-

 


       

Interview with Ms Trisha Sicilia, Senior Supplier Quality Engineer, Lockheed Martin Corporation

By Patrick Eaton

INTERVIEW LINKS:

(3 Part Recordings)







ABSTRACT:

The topic of the final research is the Bell Aircraft Corporation and the Air Force Plant #6 in Smyrna/Marietta, Georgia. During the Second World War II, Bell Aircraft won a contract to produce the B-29 Superfortress. Cobb County Georgia and the Governor of Georgia lobbied to have Bell Aircraft produce the B-29 in Marietta Georgia.

As Bell Aircraft ended operations in 1945, Lockheed Aircraft picked up operations in Marietta and continues to operate in Marietta. I conducted an interview of Ms. Trisha Sicilia who is a Senior Supplier Quality Engineer in support of the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35), the F-22 Raptor, the F-15C Eagle, and the C-130 Hercules aircraft.

Ms. Sicilia has been involved in the aviation industry for well over 20 years and has previously worked at Pratt & Whitney before starting work with Lockheed Martin in 2005. As a Sr Supplier Quality Engineer, she is responsible for receiving parts from suppliers, conducting inspections, writing up detailed reports, and informing Program Managers of parts issues with the suppliers. More importantly, she tracks data from each of the suppliers that helps management make informed decisions with respect to an international supply chain.

The scope of her work includes inspections of over 400+ parts weekly and a heavy travel schedule visiting and coordinating with the hundreds of small (Companies with 50+ employees on average) manufacturers annually.

Although Ms. Sicilia is not the entrepreneur responsible for the management of funds nor business decisions, she is responsible for managing a travel budget, timely reporting of supplier issues, and has twice recommended termination of supplier contracts due to issues or an inability to satisfy the program standards. Most importantly, for this research, Ms. Sicilia is an example of the long and rich tradition of women employed in the military aviation industry that began during the Second World War and with other companies such as Bell Aircraft Corporation.


INTERVIEW:

EXERCISE: Oral History Interview

SUBJECT: Employee, Lockheed Martin Corporation

LOCATION: Hoschton, GA and Smyrna, Georgia

DATE: 14:00 05 December 2021

• NAME OF INTERVIEWEE:  Ms Trish Sicilia (SICILIA)

• INTERVIEWER: Patrick R Eaton (EATON), PhD Candidate, Liberty University


1. What is your title?

Senior Supplier Quality Engineer


2. What is your specialty at work?

Quality Assurance Engineers and Analysts monitor product development and perform reviews and inspections of program artifacts/deliverables and associated activities to assure quality requirements processes and standards are met. QAE’s devise and implement methods and procedures for inspecting, testing, and evaluating the precision and accuracy of products and production equipment by collaborating with engineers, manufacturers, and customers to ensure quality and engineering requirements are met. 


3. What kind of training were you given?

Annual training in Quality Assurance Engineering, Industry Standards, unique Lockheed Martin Software and Database Management.


4. What kind of activities do you perform?

Assist various management, staff, vendors/suppliers, customers, and partners with initiatives to reengineer processes and methods to ensure compliance to customer contractual requirements and continuous improvement initiatives in the areas of cost, efficiency, quality assurance, and customer satisfaction.

The successful candidate will play a key role in executing initiatives associated with the Quality organization.


5. How long have you been employed with Lockheed Martin?

Since 2005 (16 years) with Lockheed Martin Corporation. Before that Ms. Sicilia worked for Pratt and Whitney for 3 years.


6. What Aircraft programs do you support?

Joint Strike Fighter (F-35), the F-22 Raptor, the F-15C Eagle, and the C-130 Hercules aircraft.

 

7. Does your work require travel?

Yes. Weekly and monthly travel out to numerous small scale aircraft parts manufacturers and suppliers.


8. If so, where do you typically travel to?

All over the United States, from California to Texas, Florida and New York City.


9. What is a typical day like?

Mostly communicating with parts suppliers or reviewing data in the Lockheed Martin parts database. After travel, time is spent writing up reports on the parts suppliers.


10. What is your main activity?

Researching, reviewing and writing.


11. Why did you choose this activity?

Ms. Sicilia’s father was a 40-year veteran of Pratt & Whitney, the aircraft engine manufacturer whom she was first employed. His experiences fostered her interested eventual employment in the aviation manufacturing industry.


12. What do you like and dislike about it?

Ms. Sicilia commented that the travel and interaction with the parts suppliers was her most favorite aspect of her employment. Her least favorite was the lack of upward mobility however, she mentioned that Lockheed Martin was, in comparison to other large aviation companies, rather caring of her continued employment and well being.


13. What special rules or conventions did you have to follow?

There are standards (ISO and others) and strict tolerances utilized to inspect and receive parts for the various aircraft programs. Further, there are nuanced conventions and rules applied to composite and non-composite materials. 


14. With whom did you work?

Ms. Sicilia works with other Supplier Quality Engineers and helps the newer less experienced Quality Engineers as they receive, inspect, and report on their parts suppliers.


15. Are you unionized?

Lockheed Martin is unionized; the hourly workers are part of a Union. Salaried employees are not, however, unionized.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"CONVENTIONAL COMMANDERS IN AN UNCONVENTIONAL WAR: THE U.S. ARMY IN VIETNAM 1965-1967"

-
Image
INTRODUCTION                  Between 1965 and 1968 the majority of the Infantry Brigade and Battalion commanders fighting in Vietnam were veterans of the Second World War and/or the Korean war. Who were these   WWII veterans who led the U.S. Army in Vietnam and, as a group, how did they interpret their assigned tasks during the first two years of America’s involvement in Vietnam. This study illustrates how the ‘first wave’ of maneuver commanders, of whom a majority were veterans of the Second World War or Korea, adapted to myriad of conditions they faced across the 44 provinces in the Republic of Vietnam.   Within the historiography of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, the secondary literature concentrates on the strategy developed and implemented by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) and the ‘search and destroy’ operations executed across the country. A small group of scholars have argued that without any clear method through which to measure success, the commanders pursued ‘bod
Read more

“U.S. MARINE CORPS PRE-WAR TRAINING AND THE BATTLE OF BELLEAU WOOD: 1917-1918”

-
Image
I : Introduction                     The fighting in Belleau Wood, France, in  June, 1918 saw the command of the U.S. Marine 6th Machine Gun Battalion change hands four times in 11 days. Such was the nature of the vicious fight between the 4th Marine Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division (U.S. Army) and the Germans pushing towards Paris. By all accounts, this first real test of the U.S Marines in the First World War, was a bloodletting that should have ended in a rout as the experienced and veteran German machine gunners tore into the inexperienced U.S. Marines. Rather than collapse, the 4th Marine Brigade withstood the German assaults and not only held firm, but triumphed. The U.S. Marine Corps 5th and 6th Marine Regiments in 1918 fought against the veteran and very experienced German infantry. This study seeks to identify how ad hoc Marine Corps infantry battalions and the newly formed 4th Marine Brigade was able to not only stop the German advance, but ultimately prevail, over a much
Read more

1968 TET OFFENSIVE: The Beginning of the End for Continued U.S. Involvement in Vietnam

-
Image
  The Vietnam War after the Tet Offensive of 1968   The 1968 “Tet” Offensive spread out across South Vietnam between 30 and 31 January. The offensive produced shock both politically and militarily in the capital cities of Saigon and Washington D.C. The purpose of the offensive, in the extreme, was for Hanoi to cause a general uprising across the beleaguered cities of South Vietnam; a ‘popular enjoining’ of the fight by sympathetic South Vietnamese against the South Vietnamese government and her mighty ally, the United States. Sam Adams, a CIA analyst who was stationed in Vietnam at the time, believes Hanoi’s chief objective was to “jolt American public opinion right before the American elections. And in my view they succeeded in spades in doing that. [1] And at minimum, to cause chaos, sow worry and concern for South Vietnamese citizens and Americans alike, and to influence American public opinion. Surely the calculus of the North Vietnamese took into consideration the free press o
Read more

“AUFTRAGSTAKTIK" - Mission Type Orders and The Heer

-
Image
  Introduction to Basic WWII German Army Doctrine  Staff officers quick huddle and map check. Max Hastings, British historian and journalist, said in a radio interview on WGN Chicago …             “...there's no doubt that man for man, the German army was the greatest fighting force of the Second World War”. And author Chris Evans:             “The German soldier was very professional and well trained, aggressive in attack and stubborn in defence. He was always adaptable, particularly in the later years when shortages of equipment were being felt.” Analysis by the US Army of the 1939 German Campaign in Poland  found that "The emphasis which the Germans placed on the development of leadership and initiative in commanders during years of preparatory training brought its rewards in the Polish campaign. With confidence that these principles had been properly inculcated, all commanders, from the highest to the lowest echelons, felt free to carry out their missions or meet c
Read more