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At Cessna, Jesús Salinas is leading a new aircraft program
“My job as project engineer is to bring the teams together. Once we get the
go-ahead the clock starts and the pressure mounts,” he says
 Jesús Salinas moved into a new job this year at Cessna Aircraft Co Advanced Design (Wichita, KS).
Salinas, a project and aerospace engineer, loves the excitement of creating something new. He’s been with Cessna since 2001; this is just the latest in a series of exciting opportunities he’s been given.
“My job as project engineer is to bring the teams together: aerodynamics, structures, working with manufacturing. I’ve been given leeway in putting teams together to support our product lines,” he says.
Production line and field
Until this latest job, Salinas was project engineer of a sustaining engineering organization, responsible for both production line and field issues. “If a problem came in that required special expertise I’d coordinate with the appropriate engineer. What I’ve gone to now, working to develop new products, will be heavier on schedule pressure,” Salinas explains.
“Cessna gives engineers the opportunity to become experts in their field, which helps people move within the company as I have done. An engineer can go from sustaining support to new programs, not just to design an aircraft but right through to certifying it,” he says.
Detail work
Salinas likes the detail-oriented aspect of project engineering. “You have to know something about everything. I look at the schedule and it’s like a chess game, how it will impact issues and development.”
Right now sixteen people report to him directly, but when a new development project is in full swing it may be anywhere from thirty to forty. “A lot of engineers can be brought in from the sustaining ranks to build the new team and I influence how the team is built,” Salinas says.
He enjoys his role as a manager. When he first came to Cessna he was torn between getting an MS in aerospace or an MBA that would put him on a management track. “My wife reminded me that I love working with people and getting a team together, and I went for the MBA.” He completed it in 2005 at Wichita State University (Wichita, KS).
Team player
Salinas believes a good manager is people-oriented; a team player who’s “not afraid to get down and dirty and work out issues.” When his new team was announced eighteen people asked to be assigned to him. “It felt good,” he says. “I expect them to work hard and meet the schedule, but also have fun doing it.”
Salinas is Mexican American. He grew up outside McAllen, TX, near the Mexican border, and went to school in La Joya.
Growing up he was influenced by his grandfather, a farmer, to go for his dreams. “He said to me, ‘If you don’t want to apply yourself, stay here and work in the hot sun.’”
But Salinas did want to apply himself. “For me, it’s people skills and management. Focus on what you like doing, and it doesn’t seem like work!”
He got his BS in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994.
Working on the Beechjet
In college Salinas did summer internships with Raytheon, and he joined the company as a design engineer after graduation. He worked on the Beechjet integrated R&D program, developing production line changes and redesigning structural components.
In 1996 he moved to another project, part of the aircraft “control by light” (CBL) fiber-optics program. Later in ’96 he became senior design engineer for special missions engineering; in 1999 he became technical airframe lead for the Hawker integrated R&D program.
Excitement at Cessna
In 2001 he joined Cessna, where he has moved up through various positions: senior design engineer, group leader, assistant project engineer, and now a project engineer in advanced design.
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