Lockheed Martin Space executive vice president shared insights into his high-tech industry during Voices of Experience
Voices of Experience went out of this world during the spring 2021 discussion on April 28. Lockheed Martin Space Executive Vice President Rick Ambrose (MBA 1994) discussed breakthroughs in the ever-evolving aerospace industry, their implications for life here on Earth and how digital transformation is shaping the field. More than 100 attendees watched the virtual conversation moderated by Daniels Dean Vivek Choudhury. View the recording here.
Lockheed Martin Space Executive Vice President Rick Ambrose
Speaking from Lockheed Martin’s Waterton Canyon campus in Littleton, Colorado, just southeast of Denver, Ambrose highlighted a few projects that the company has recently pioneered or is currently working on. Among the many developments that Ambrose and his team have had a hand in are GPS and weather-tracking satellites, rockets heading to the asteroid Bennu, heat shields for the Mars rover Perseverance and the Artemis Project, which aims to put the first woman and the next man on the moon.
According to Ambrose, space exploration is growing by about 5–8% each year and is predicted to become a trillion-dollar industry by 2040, with Lockheed Martin Space alone currently standing as a $10 billion enterprise employing about 22,000 people. “It’s an exciting place to be,” he said.
In light of the industry’s meteoric growth, Dean Choudhury brought the interplanetary conversation closer to home, asking Ambrose why, given all the challenges facing our own world today, people should pay attention to space exploration.
“I think human beings as a whole are explorers,” Ambrose said. “You go back a couple hundred years ago, we were going out and trying to understand why we are here, what makes us tick, what’s the universe about. There’s a natural inquisitiveness.”
Ambrose emphasized how investigating the unknown in space has always informed scientific breakthroughs on Earth, even during the less advanced early days of space exploration. Today, as researchers branch out into exploration of Mars with even more cutting-edge technology, there are key implications for life on Earth—specifically for climate change.
“There’s speculation that [Mars] had an atmosphere in the past and something happened and we don’t understand why,” Ambrose said. “We need to learn that to come back to our own Earth and say, ‘what do we need to do differently?’ with all the concerns about climate. There’s not a night that goes by that I don’t look up at the stars and wonder what do we discover next.”
Dean Choudhury then asked what critical technologies are still being worked on that could help facilitate a sustainable community on the moon. Again, Ambrose connected these ongoing developments to fighting climate change on our own planet.
“We have to figure out how to produce water, we have to figure out how to produce oxygen, we have to figure out how to produce rocket fuel, because when you go out there, you’re unable to take a lot with you,” Ambrose said. “How do you know how you can operate with minimal energy and minimal resources? I think very much [that we] can come back and help Earth with some of our climate challenges.”
Ambrose said that while past space exploration helped to inform developments in material sciences, such as new uses for aluminum and other metals, he foresees more high-tech breakthroughs coming.
Voices of Experience: Innovation in the Aerospace Industry, April 28, 2021
“I think in the future, what you’re going to see is more around artificial intelligence and machine learning,” he said, highlighting Lockheed’s recent expedition to the asteroid Bennu as an example. Because the asteroid is hundreds of millions of miles away, the company developed a twin technology so they could practice and rehearse in a simulated environment before the actual satellite made its approach. These advanced robotic techniques can help with emerging terrestrial technologies like autonomous driving and computer processing.
That led Choudhury to ask Ambrose how he fosters a culture of innovation as a leader, especially at a company like Lockheed that, quite literally, is full of rocket scientists.
“That’s something, as a leader, that you always have to pay attention to,” Ambrose said. “I’ve heard people say that small companies innovate and larger companies do not. My answer always is ‘no, people innovate.’ If someone brings an idea to you and the first thing you say is, ‘we tried that before, and it didn’t work,’ you’ll eventually squash innovation.”
Ambrose elaborated on how digital transformation is shaping the way he does business and encouraging innovation among employees.
“We’re not doing digital transformation for digital’s sake,” Ambrose said. “Sometimes the best breakthroughs aren’t the really slick things you see. It’s some of your basic processes. Where are you consuming a lot of labor costs and dollars on repetitive or duplicative things inside the business that are frustrating your employees and consuming a lot of resources? Because when employees are chasing inefficient systems, they’re not innovating. You’re not freeing up time for them to think and add value to your customers, which ultimately returns to the shareholders.”
To close out their conversation, Dean Choudhury asked Ambrose what Daniels students should learn so they can be contributing citizens in the future.
“It’s kind of an old cliché, but learning to learn,” Ambrose said. “And not just in your industry or particular discipline, but learning outside, and having that natural inquisitiveness and building that.”
Ambrose then answered questions from the audience. He addressed how Lockheed Martin works with the space startup community and the commercial industry, its involvement in 21st-century warfare strategy, sustainability and how the organization adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hosted by the Daniels College of Business and sponsored by U.S. Bank, Voices of Experience (VOE) brings CEOs and significant leaders into the University of Denver community to share the lessons learned from their triumphs, mistakes and decisions as they navigated through their leadership careers.
For more information, or to view past VOE recordings, visit daniels.du.edu/voe.