ENGLISH ESSAY

On February XX, 2015 in the SELP 694 Seminar Class, Mr. XYZ presented a lecture entitled “Systems Engineering LMU SE Seminar Class.” Mr. XYZ is currently the Vice President of ABC Corp. Mr. XYZ graduated from XYZ University and joined the US Navy to work in various intelligence positions and travelled throughout the world.

Mr. XYZ described the typical career path for a systems engineer including the expectations and responsibilities of the various positions. Furthermore, Mr. XYZ shared the different aspects of business sizes and how to develop new business in both the commercial and government arenas.

Mr. XYZ started off the seminar with a concept called “MATTESS,” which stands for “Money, Advancement, Travel, Training, Experience, Satisfaction, and Security.” The concept states that an employee is motivated to do their best work by at least one of the aforementioned items. System engineers usually promote themselves out of a job, which includes the transition to engineering management, then managing engineering, then program management, and finally business development. Transitioning to engineering management requires good communication and motivational skills. In addition, transitioning to managing engineering requires the understanding of corporate goals as well as management of budgets, schedules, requirements, and business strategy development. Furthermore, transitioning to program management requires successful budget, schedule, requirements, and new business development as well as providing key interactions with the customer. Lastly, transitioning to business development requires a good understanding of how business is generated, engaging customers and competitors, helping the customer sell the solution, find funding, and finally keeping the program sold. Mr. XYZ described the different business sizes including the large-sized businesses such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, medium-sized businesses such as Honeywell and Rockwell Collins, and finally small-sized businesses, which are the largest growing market segments relied upon by the government and large-sized businesses.

Mr. XYZ’s presentation made me realize that satisfaction is what motivates me to do my best work as a subcontracts manager at my company. Furthermore, my position allows me to transition into my company’s business development area and I found Mr. XYZ’s presentation useful in helping me achieve my promotion goal into this new area.

I found the speaker very engaging and I appreciated his openness with his personal life which allowed the audience to connect more with him on a personal level. I also appreciated the information he shared about the current and future financial situation of the nation that allowed us to remain optimistic about our future business and security.