Presidential choppers and Black Hawks will now be built by company run by Bama grad

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Two and a half years into the job as CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation, University of Alabama alumna Marillyn Hewson’s successful $9 billion purchase of helicopter maker Sikorsky has put the defense giant on a decidedly new course: expanding Lockheed into new military and civilian markets, including building Black Hawks and the presidential helicopter.

According to Bloomberg, Hewson has made a name for herself and gained investor confidence by making the F-35 fighter jet, the largest weapons program in history, successful after years of languishing, and rebuilding the company’s reputation with the Pentagon. The first of several versions of the F-35 are expected to be ready for combat by the end of the month.

Under Hewson’s leadership, the company’s profit margins climbed to the highest level in more than two decades last year and the shares have outperformed those of competitors General Dynamics Corp. and Raytheon Co., despite declining revenue.

Hewson holds business and economics degrees from the University of Alabama, and has been working her way up through Lockheed since 1983, giving her intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the company, and a strong understanding of its mission and trajectory.

According to Mike Hardin, a former dean of the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce, where Hewson is a member of the business administration board of visitors, the Lockheed CEO is a skilled time manager. Hewson reviews in detail her calendar after every month to track how she spent her days to make sure she’s devoting enough time to the company’s priority issues, he said.

“I’m not surprised at the success she’s had,” said Hardin, who recently became provost of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.

Despite Lockheed’s reputation as one of the best-run defense companies, the purchase of Sikorsky and its helicopter business will be a challenge because it requires higher volume production for more varied customers than the relatively low output of fighter jets, said George Ferguson, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

While the acquisition will present a new challenge for Lockheed and its Alabama-trained CEO, Joe DeNardi, an analyst with Stifel Financial Corp, said he believes Hewson is more than up to the task.

“If you look at the stock performance over the past couple of years,” DeNardi said, “it’s tough to give her a grade of anything less than an A.”

Lockheed Martin has a strong presence in the Yellowhammer state, employing Alabamians in Troy, Huntsville, Courtland, Montgomery, and Yuma. In February the company announced an expansion of 240 jobs by 2020 in the Pike county production facility that makes Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles.