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Management Degree Goes to Work

Wayne Harsha never doubted that Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University had come up with a winning combination with its Master of Science in Technical Management program. He had no idea, however, that the "combination" would land him one day inside a corporate vault, surrounded by company secrets, under the careful watch of a couple of security guards.

Since he had helped develop the university's MSTM program, which he chairs, nearly 12 years ago, Harsha has seen the positive results of offering industry-specific business administration training in the workplace to engineers and others employed on the technical end of some of the world's leading aviation and aerospace companies.

Most Graduates are Promoted
Companies not only have praised the way the program prepares key technically trained employees for advancement within corporate ranks and for the assumption of larger managerial responsibilities. They also have willingly supported it by supplying tuition reimbursement, and very often the facilities that are used for the 42-credit, 16- to 22-month program.

Good reviews are just as plentiful from the student side, witnessed best, perhaps, by the fact that about 90 percent of the 400 people who have graduated from the program since it began in 1990 have been promoted at least one level within their companies.

Nevertheless, dealing with key employees of some of the most respected and experienced aviation and aerospace companies in the world at times can lead to some unusual circumstances. For example, all students enrolled in the MSTM program must complete a capstone management research project. These projects deal with ways of improving the workings of their own companies, and over the years Harsha has been told that the savings brought about by this student research has more than equaled a company's investment in tuition.

It's obvious that this material usually would be proprietary, and often very sensitive. Which is why Harsha ended up in that corporate vault one day. The management research project completed by two of his students dealt with material that was so sensitive it had to remain under tight security - even when being evaluated for a grade in the program for which it was written. So he and the two students conducted the evaluation under conditions most master's candidates and their faculty seldom experience, no matter how impressive the thesis. And yes, he says, their project was approved - though he can say little else about it.

Special Skills for Managing Engineers
The MSTM program was born, Harsha explains, from just such technical exclusivity. In surveying Embry-Riddle graduates, university administrators learned that conventional MBA programs often didn't apply well to technical arenas and were not meeting the real-world needs of its former students.

And their employers had similar responses. Their polling showed that, as talented and valuable as these employees were, they sorely lacked the training that would support them in higher, often managerial, positions.

There is a decided difference, Harsha likes to point out, between the skills needed to manage a retail business and those needed to supervise engineers who are designing aircraft and vehicles to fly in space.

Students learn that their success in leading a team and winning support and funding depends on their ability to market themselves and their "product."
The program builds on three foundation courses that teach students how to use a computer as a decision-making tool, how to communicate conclusions concisely and persuasively in speaking and writing, and how to use quantitative methods and statistics to make business decisions. Other courses help students identify their management style and learn how to interact with others who may have different or opposing perceptions. They learn that their success in leading a team and
winning support and funding depends on their ability to market themselves and their "product."

Throughout the program, students practice motivation and recognition skills, conflict resolution, two-way communication, and other techniques for managing effective work teams. Two courses in project management and management information systems have tremendous appeal for corporate sponsors, Harsha says, particularly as software has evolved and become accepted in technical organizations.

"A vast amount of technical information is available to technical managers today," he says. "How do they access it and use it?"

In a research project with regional airline American Eagle, students solved crew scheduling and other problems by devising a way to access the company's SABRE system.

Northrup Grumman employee Jerry Spruill, who earned his MSTM in 1999, praises Embry-Riddle for "trying to stay tuned in to actual business conduct in the real world and bringing in adjunct instructors who left their office just an hour ago after doing exactly what they're teaching about. It balances the theoretical knowledge."

Convenience an Important Factor
Lockheed Corp., at its Kennedy Space Center facilities in Florida, was the first company to use the new program. Two years later, in 1992, the program was so successful that it became a permanent feature of Embry-Riddle's Extended Campus, and the practice of offering the program to a company's employees at a location convenient to them was begun.

Harsha says that in discussing the program with prospective companies, the convenience is almost as important as the curriculum in the approval process.

"They tell me, almost without exception," he says, "that they have people without management skills in management positions, and they can't afford to send them away for the training they need. As far as I can tell, there is no other university that is delivering education in this fashion."

Today, 330 students are enrolled in the program and are attending classes in places at or near where they work in cities that include Detroit, Houston, Phoenix and Seattle. Faculty members, all experts in their fields, log thousands of miles each year flying to the cities where these students are enrolled. And the program knows no borders. A few years ago, a program was successfully completed in Madrid, and classes are planned to begin this fall in Taipei and Vancouver.

Companies that have adopted the program include airlines (Alaska, America West, Continental, Delta, Midway, Northwest, Southwest and United), manufacturers (Boeing, Cessna, Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon, Rockwell Collins and Sikorsky), agencies (FAA, NASA and United Space Alliance), and major corporations such as FedEx, Honeywell, IBM, Motorola and Oracle.

Students Give Program High Marks
The evaluations of the program reflect consistent employer satisfaction, says Harsha.

"Embry-Riddle has been delivering the MSTM course to Boeing employees for quite a few years," says Karsten Overa, director of 737 operations at Boeing. "I do not have, nor do I solicit any feedback from those who have completed or are enrolled in the MSTM program, but I have heard good comments from students. That, and the fact that we have two classes [26-28 students each] at our Renton site and a class just about to start at our Everett site provides evidence that it is popular, as employees in the Puget Sound area have many masters degree programs to choose from."

The payoff from students for the work devoted to gaining the MSTM degree is equally enthusiastic.

"I have found that I have been able to utilize many of the tools we learned to better analyze our processes within the company," says Marjie Filler, a video engineer at United Space Alliance in Houston and an MSTM graduate. "I have gained confidence in my abilities to influence change and to address upper management as a result of the multiple opportunities to present my ideas in the classroom."

"I learned a myriad of wonderful, helpful things that prepared me for performance in the company as a technical manager," says Val Vonheeder, a technical writing specialist at Northrop Grumman. The program made him a better technical writer, he adds, "along the lines of being able to better understand my own managers and to give them what I would want, were I in their positions."

Science Base is Good for Credentials
For Joann Washington, who works as a strategic analyst at the U.S. Army Tank Automotive and Armament Command in Detroit, the effort she put into her MSTM degree has paid off in another way. In addition to working "hand-in-glove" with what she is doing now, the program also "just paved the way for all the wonderful things I'm doing" with the other, non-technical side of her brain.

She recently completed a master's degree in reading and language arts and will begin a PhD program in educational leadership in November.

"The deal clincher for me in choosing the program," Spruill says, "was the fact that it was an MS in management, instead of an MBA." He adds that his company views science-based degrees as more relevant to "what we do for a living. With an MS degree, you can get either your management or technical credential at Northrop Grumman, where you're likely to be an engineering manager or a program manager."

The program's on-site location, full sponsorship and funding by the company, and lockstep approach were also selling points for him.

When he started in the degree program in 1997, he was a program manager at Northrop Grumman; he is now the director of executive support at the company's Melbourne site.

For students like Spruill, and the companies that fund their education, Embry-Riddle's master's degree in technical management is an investment that works.

To learn more about the MSTM program, contact Wayne Harsha at harshaw@cts.db.erau.edu or (210) 590-0765.

By Tom Brinkmoeller