Peggy Nelson
Vice President of Engineering and
Global Product Development
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Aerospace Systems
Peggy Nelson, vice president of engineering and global product development for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, is no stranger to CSUN, having earned both a teaching credential and a master’s degree in electrical engineering there. In the early 1980s, she was part of a cutting-edge program organized by Women in Science and Engineering in partnership with ten companies and CSUN, which sought to recruit professional women in math or science and bring them back to school to become engineers. Nelson, who had earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics at UCLA, was teaching high school math at a private school when she learned of the program. She enrolled in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and TRW (which later became part of Northrop Grumman) paid for her education, gave her a half-time internship and then hired her full time after graduation.
“I’m very appreciative of the fact that in the 1980s, the university was really innovative in stepping out in the area of diversity,” she says. “That program was pivotal for me.”
Nelson has now been a program manager at Northrop Grumman for about 25 years and a vice president for ten years, leading an organization of 9,000 engineers. About a year and a half ago, the college reached out to her and asked her to join the IAB. “I thought about it and said I would be willing to do it,” she says. “It was my alma mater doing good things, and I have a lot of appreciation for what the university did for me.”
Being on the IAB has enabled her to stay networked with others in industry and with thought leaders in engineering, as well as remain connected to the college. It has also helped expand the relationship between Northrop Grumman and CSUN in order to build the pipeline of engineering talent. She’s particularly interested in seeing the board address the retention of women in engineering. “When I joined TRW in 1983, I was the first technical woman in the lab,” she recalls. “How do we as companies create an environment that can accommodate women and some of the things they may want to accomplish outside their jobs?” she says.
She’s also eager to see the IAB reach out to incoming freshmen, particularly those who are first-generation college students, to help them understand what they need to accomplish at CSUN to be successful in college and careers. “Those students don’t have a support system at home for learning these things,” she says. “The IAB can help them understand what can make them better candidates for a company like Northrop Grumman to hire. For example, if you’re first generation and working to put yourself through school or supporting your family, do you take an extra year but get better grades, or do you hurry and take as many classes as you can and get worse grades but finish faster? The answer is that employers care about GPA.”
And finally, she’d love to see the IAB’s membership expanded and diversified, which she believes will benefit the college. “With the budget, the universities are really going to have to improve their sources of revenue,” she says, “and expanding the IAB can only help in that regard.”