About five years ago, C.T. Lin, professor of mechanical engineering, was trying to get a new student project under way. To move forward, his team needed an inertial guidance system, an expensive component used in navigation. Because the system was made by Northrop Grumman, CECS dean S. K. Ramesh approached the college’s man on the inside, Charles Volk, to see if he could get it for Lin’s team at a discount. Volk, vice president and chief technologist for the company’s Navigation Systems Division, did better than that: he arranged for it to be donated. And last summer, using the unit, CSUN’s team took first place in the national Intelligent Ground Vehicle competition.
A longtime member of the CECS Industry Advisory Board, Volk has been a friend, advocate and supporter of the college for many years. Ironically, however, he’s not an engineer himself. A self-described “physicist among engineers,” he began his career at Litton Industries in 1977 after earning his Ph.D. from Indiana University. After a brief foray to the Aerospace Corporation, he returned to Litton in 1984, taking on increasingly responsible roles until becoming Litton’s vice president of engineering in 1999. When Northrop Grumman acquired Litton in 2001, Volk was named vice president of engineering and manufacturing for the Western region of Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems Sector. He became chief technologist in 2003.
It was while he was Litton’s VP of engineering that Volk joined the college’s Industry Advisory Board—a move that he found useful in his work. Because he was responsible for personnel as well as technology at the company, he was always on the lookout for talent. Although Litton, and later Northrop Grumman, hired from many universities, the names of employees who had attended CSUN filled five pages.
“Every facility has a ‘backyard’ school—one that’s very close that we hire from and where a large number of engineers go to further their education,” he explains. “CSUN was the logical choice to become involved with because their graduates were a large part of our workforce.”
Since then, Volk has remained an active member of the Industry Advisory Board, enjoying the access it gives him to the dean and faculty and appreciating the opportunity he has to express his company’s needs with respect to technology education. “I’m not looking to CSUN to give us technology, but I am looking to the college to provide a workforce that’s technologically equipped,” he says.
What he enjoys most of all, however, is contributing to student projects, whether that means providing funding or equipment. “From an engineering point of view, student projects are the area I value most because that’s where people really learn to be engineers,” he says. “It also gives us an opportunity to see somebody’s creativity and gauge their potential—whether they can they think on their feet and go beyond the textbook.” Not to mention, he adds, if students have worked on Northrop Grumman equipment, as employees they are more valuable because they become productive much sooner.
“I like knowing that I can rely on the university to be responsive to our needs and that they are a resource for our workforce,” he says. “Hiring employees is only the start of their education. It’s nice to have an institution nearby that can provide the growth our people will need throughout their careers.”