Raytheon’s Top Engineer to Students: Be Curious
Laura McGill explains why she loves her career, and what others can do to follow a similar trajectory.
At an intimate gathering in the University of Arizona student union, Raytheon VP of engineering Laura McGill talks about the massive challenges of managing 5,000 engineers and billion-dollar budgets.
According to Laura McGill, vice president of engineering at Raytheon Missile Systems, being an engineer is the best job in the world.
The leader of more than 5,000 international engineers came to the University of Arizona as a part of the College of Engineering’s “Lessons in Engineering Leadership” lecture series. She sat down with Larry Head, acting dean of the College of Engineering, and used her decades of engineering experience to answer student-submitted questions.
As a child, McGill attended air shows with her parents. She was always set on a career in science and technology, and it seemed to her that all of the most interesting and fun research was happening in aircraft work.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Washington and a master’s degree in aerospace systems from West Coast University, she took on a series of engineering jobs at Raytheon, ranging from program manager to chief engineer to deputy director, eventually landing in her current position.
Even 10 years ago, she said she never would have imagined becoming VP of engineering.
“Every job I’ve had seemed like the most fun job in the world, and I was really reluctant to move on to whatever was offered to me because I loved what I was doing so much,” she said.
