{"id":247,"date":"2014-02-06T17:40:32","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T17:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/?p=247"},"modified":"2023-02-22T16:45:05","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T16:45:05","slug":"iab-highlight-peggy-nelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/2014\/02\/06\/iab-highlight-peggy-nelson\/","title":{"rendered":"IAB Highlight – Peggy Nelson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nelson-Peggy-2013.jpg\"<\/a>Peggy Nelson<\/strong>
\nVice President of Engineering and
\nGlobal Product Development
\nNorthrop Grumman Corporation
\nAerospace Systems<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very appreciative of the fact that in the 1980s, the university was really innovative in stepping out in the area of diversity,\u201d she says. \u201cThat program was pivotal for me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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. \u201cI thought about it and said I would be willing to do it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was my alma mater doing good things, and I have a lot of appreciation for what the university did for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s particularly interested in seeing the board address the retention of women in engineering. \u201cWhen I joined TRW in 1983, I was the first technical woman in the lab,\u201d she recalls. \u201cHow do we as companies create an environment that can accommodate women and some of the things they may want to accomplish outside their jobs?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s 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. \u201cThose students don\u2019t have a support system at home for learning these things,\u201d she says. \u201cThe IAB can help them understand what can make them better candidates for a company like Northrop Grumman to hire. For example, if you\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

And finally, she\u2019d love to see the IAB\u2019s membership expanded and diversified, which she believes will benefit the college. \u201cWith the budget, the universities are really going to have to improve their sources of revenue,\u201d she says, \u201cand expanding the IAB can only help in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}