State Affairs

California Aerospace Day: 7-8 August 2012

California’s aerospace industry dwarfs both Hollywood and agriculture as the state’s primary source of jobs, an AIAA panel reminded representatives of the California state legislature at the California State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA, on Tuesday, 8 August. The event’s theme was: “California Aerospace: Stuck in the Past, or Rocketing into the Future?”

The panel, moderated by Ivan Rosenburg, management consultant at Frontier Associates, was composed of Lt Gen Gene Tattini, U.S. Air Force (retired), Deputy Director, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and former Commander, U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Ken Guss, former CEO, Klune Industries, Randy Garber, partner, A.T. Kearney Global Management Consultants, who led A.T. Kearney’s analysis of the California aerospace industry in 2008, Gregory C. Hill, director of marketing, Ordnance Systems, Meggit Defense Systems, and Ross G. Bell, AIAA. The panel spent an hour and a half reviewing the current state of California aerospace and the possible dark future of the industry in California, unless substantive governmental reforms are made.