Lockheed Martin
Principal NJ locations: Moorestown, Cherry Hill, and Atlantic City
NJ employees: 6,300
Chief executive: Robert J. Stevens
Who they are: A global security company providing and supporting advanced technology systems, products, and services
What we love: Commitment to diversity and a strong sense of social responsibility
Jim Judd clearly has enough to do in his job as director of hardware systems in the Maritime Systems and Sensors unit at Lockheed Martin, one of the largest private employers in South Jersey. There are more than 1,500 people in his unit, which designs and makes radar, weapons, and sensing systems.
For the last dozen years, though, Judd, 50, has spent much of his spare time with high schools near Lockheed’s Moorestown headquarters by supervising their FIRST robotics programs. FIRST is a national robotics competition started by Segway inventor Dean Kamen to interest more students in the sciences and engineering. It fits right into Lockheed’s vision of local involvement.
“We’ve always pushed for community outreach—and what’s better than to get our engineers, who have so much knowledge, and help them excite kids about our business?” says Judd, a 26-year Lockheed employee.
Jessica Lusterman, a mechanical design engineer at Lockheed, concentrates her outreach on girls and women as part of the Society of Women Engineers.
“I never feel discriminated against day-to-day here, but there are clearly not enough women in engineering,” says Lusterman, 27. She helps coordinate programs that bring local middle school and high school girls to Lockheed to demonstrate what engineers do.
“I want to show them we are not all nerds with pocket protectors. We do experiments and build towers out of toothpicks and planes out of Legos,” she says. “That Lockheed encourages this shows the company’s commitment toward diversity.”
Lockheed’s Moorestown facility has 5,000 employees, nearly half of whom are engineers doing sensitive and often secret defense work. The workday can be tense, but Lockheed’s emphasis on career development and social values ameliorates that. Lockheed supports a chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, as well as minority scholarships at local colleges and mentoring programs for minority engineering students.
The company also has a tradition of volunteerism. Lockheed employees donated more than $70,000 to the United Way in 2008 and raised another $200,000-plus in charity bike rides, runs, and walks.
Lockheed is always on the lookout for new talent, especially in engineering and program management. Currently, the company is recruiting entry-level candidates with backgrounds in science and math.