A Short Cruise with Boeing Chief Engineer Suzanne Brown

For Boeing chief engineer Suzanne Brown, the attraction to big challenges is perhaps best summed up by the adage “smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.”

Brown, who spent her childhood in Boston, Massachusetts, has been sailing since she was eight years old. Her interest began when her father, while teaching her two older sisters to sail one summer on Cape Cod, handed Brown the tiller to steer the boat. In that moment, she was hooked.

Ever since, she’s enjoyed pitting herself against the elements and harnessing the power of the wind — in October 2019 even completing a 10-day trip across the Sea of Cortez off the coast of Baja California.

Brown has always thrived under challenging circumstances. That’s why, when she had the opportunity to join the company in 2004 as part of the systems engineering team for a critical defense program, she made the move.

Her interest in both engineering and sailing might be explained by the inherent similarities between the two: Whether at the helm of a program or a sailboat, she’s overseeing a variety of activities to keep everything moving smoothly in the right direction. As a chief engineer or captain, she’s navigating to emerging issues with her team (or crew) and making critical decisions. And, as Brown says, in air and missile defense, engineering — like sailing — is “all about aerodynamics.”

Growing up, Brown decided to become an engineer because it was a field where she could take the math and science fundamentals she excelled in (but always found boring) and apply them to solve problems.

“Engineering at Boeing has never been boring,” says Brown

Today, she is the chief engineer for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, or PAC-3, Missile seeker program – which recently set a new 12-month program production record in support of expanding air and missile defense requirements for the U.S, its allies and international partners worldwide – in Huntsville, Alabama.

During her 17 years at Boeing, she’s held a variety of engineering roles across a number of air and missile defense programs, including command and control engineer for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, chief architect for the National Team and missile, radar and flight test chief engineer for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense.

In addition to thriving on the solving the day-to-day technical challenges that she encounters, she’s also driven by the bigger picture behind the missions she supports –currently engineering air and missile defense capabilities to protect warfighters around the world from tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hostile aircraft.

"I’m proud of what I do,” Brown says. “Whether it’s helping defend the nation and our troops, or advancing technology in space, I’m happy knowing the programs I support are making a difference.”

She says that while the variety of roles she’s held over the years have fueled and reaffirmed her passion for engineering, they’ve also taught her that she’s passionate about engineering at Boeing.

“We really do put our people first and that makes a real impact in our programs.”

Brown points to a culture of working together to solve problems across the enterprise as a primary reason — Brown and her PAC-3 team recently collaborated with the company’s electronic support measures and space electronics groups to share best practices.

Most importantly, from continuing education opportunities to being able to bring future service dogs to work as part of their training (Brown and her son have trained two during her tenure) — she maintains that Boeing takes care of and invests in its people.

“The recognition of the people behind our products is strong at Boeing,” says Brown. “We really do put our people first and that makes a real impact in our programs.”

Apart from maybe her next sailing adventure, there’s no place she’d rather be.

Bring Fido

In addition to the emphasis on people and culture of collaboration, Brown also points to some lesser known accommodations as one of her favorite perks of working at Boeing.

“I love dogs and training service dogs is an opportunity to contribute to society. I’ve trained two, Leland and Sugar, for veterans and I was able to bring both of them to work with me every day as part of their training,” said Brown. “They even had their own badges to show security that they were approved.”