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Headquarters: |
Houston, TX |
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Employees: |
11,000 |
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Business: |
Space flight
operations under contract with
NASA
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United Space Alliance (USA) is NASA’s prime
contractor for space shuttle operations. The
company is involved in mission design and
planning, flight ops, processing of vehicle
and space hardware, and training for both
flight controllers and astronauts. The company
manages more than a third of NASA’s annual
space shuttle budget.
USA was founded in 1995 by Lockheed Martin
(Bethesda, MD) and Rockwell (Seal Beach, CA).
Today it is owned equally by Lockheed Martin
and Boeing (St Louis, MO), which bought Rockwell’s
space shuttle business in 1998.
Last year USA hired about 1,400 people.
They were stationed in Texas, Florida, Alabama,
California and Washington, DC, areas where
NASA has major space flight or administrative
operations.
In the five years since USA was formed,
the company has distinguished itself for its
diversity and affirmative action practices.
In 1998, USA was one of five federal contractors
to win the Exemplary Voluntary Effort (EVE)
Award, an annual Department of Labor honor
given for affirmative action and diversity
efforts. USA has also received diversity awards
from the state of Florida and the Texas region
of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance.
Amos Hewitt Jr has been with USA since
its formation. As manager of diversity and
compliance, he knows the strides the company
has made to improve its diversity hiring.
Currently, he says, the company’s workforce
is one-third female and 20 percent minority,
and he expects the stats to continue to improve.
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| Amos Hewitt Jr: 25 to 30 percent of company hires are new grads. |
Hewitt believes that USA’s keys to
success in the equal opportunity arena are
its approach to hiring, its performance measurement
system and its involvement with urban affairs
and community relations.
To
attract a diverse pool of new hires, USA attends
major diversity-focused conferences and job
fairs, and recruiters visit universities with
strong minority populations in technical fields.
Hewitt notes that 25 to 30 percent of company
hires are new grads.
A co-op program brings talented technical
students into the company, where they spend
two semesters working on a variety of projects.
The company has incorporated diversity
and fairness principles into its ethical standards,
Hewitt reports. The company’s diversity
performance measurement begins with setting
objectives and goals through the development
of an affirmative action plan. Then, departmental
performance in meeting the diversity goals
is carefully tracked and quantified. That
data is used by managers to plan for improvement.
“Without question we feel as though
we need to have strategic plans in place.
It’s not just to build an image of who
we are, but to demonstrate how well we’re
doing,” Hewitt says.
The company is looking for graduates with
degrees in aerospace, mechanical and electrical
engineering, robotics and computer science,
both hardware and software.
USA offers employees benefits that include
tuition reimbursement, flexible scheduling,
telecommuting options and more.
As a young company, USA has had to scrutinize
where it invests its resources for the greatest
return. By setting goals for diversity and
then measuring the success of the programs,
the company aims to leverage its investment
in diversity into a leadership role in equal
opportunity.
D/C
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