A Common-Sense Intellectual with Engineering Roots

Manufacturing Engineering, Mar 2006

A banker once described the 2006 SME Honorary Member Ronald D. Sugar, chairman, CEO, and president, Northrop Grumman Corp., as "the only PhD I know with extraordinary common sense."

After holding positions at Aerospace Corp., Hughes Aircraft Co., Argosystems, and TRW, Sugar became president and COO of Litton Industries in 2000. When Litton was acquired by Northrop Grumman the following year, Sugar joined his current employer. His background with TRW proved invaluable when TRW was also acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002. When CEO Kent Kresa retired in 2003, Sugar stepped into that position.

Since being named to Northrop Grumman's top slot in 2003, Sugar's main challenge has been overseeing the integration of the company's many recent acquisitions: a total of 12 acquisitions over the past five years. He has worked successfully to get these separate entities to work together and produce a stronger result than they would have achieved if they worked separately, declaring that realigning the components of a modern conglomerate has taken strong leadership and a clear sense of goals. His work continues to pay off. Northrop Grumman is respected for its technical leadership. It is the third largest military contractor in the world with 125,000 employees and earned a record $30.7 billion in 2005.

In addition to his corporate successes, Sugar has achieved academic excellence and contributed his engineering and leadership skills to drive large-scale national endeavors. He graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles, where he also received a master's degree and a doctorate in the same field. Sugar is currently vice chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association, a trustee of the Association of the US Army, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He has served, by presidential appointment on the National security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. And he is currently serving as chair of Engineers Week (celebrated Feb. 19-25), for which SME will serve as lead Society sponsor in 2007.

An engineer first and foremost, Sugar has been quoted as recognizing the value of early program-manager positions in preparing future business leaders for the challenges they'll face, telling attendees at a recent symposium: "In industry, a program manager is a high-stress, high-risk, high-reward job, and those who are successful often go on to general management. "

SME has proudly acknowledged Sugar for his professional eminence among manufacturing engineers with its 2006 SME Honorary Membership.