Senior program manager Sylvia Wright: at Moog, experience built her self-esteem.

Sylvia Wright is a senior program manager for Moog Inc (East Aurora, NY). As one of the company’s first PMs without a tech degree, she acquired her skills by working in a variety of departments in the company.

Moog Inc is a worldwide manufacturer of precision control components and systems. The company’s high-performance actuation products control military and commercial aircraft, satellites and space vehicles, launch vehicles, missiles and automated industrial machinery.

Main point of contact
Wright became senior program manager in 1996. She’s responsible for a wide range of programs, working with major defense contractors like General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Missiles Systems. She coordinates all activities for her assigned programs: design and development, design verification testing, assembly and test, final delivery and after-market support. “I am the main point of contact between Moog and the customer,” she says. Her job involves lots of travel, both internationally and in the U.S.

Seeking a career
Growing up in Buffalo, NY, Wright had lots of energy but little guidance. She was offered admittance to a high school that would have put her on the road to college, but her parents thought it was too far from her neighborhood.

At the school she did attend, predominantly black East High School, counselors never mentioned programs that could have paid her college tuition. “Because I didn’t have the exposure or the money, college was a dream deferred,” she says.

When she graduated from high school she landed a job as a Medicare service rep at Blue Shield of Western New York. Her mother was delighted that her daughter wasn’t doing the blue-collar work she’d done. “It was almost as if I’d made it right then,” Wright says.

Following the birth of her son, she attended evening classes at Erie Community College while working as an office manager at a local community service agency. “I was the first one in my family to go to college,” she says. But the agency lost its funding in 1978 and she found herself without a job.

Manufacturing at Moog
At the suggestion of a friend who worked there, she applied for a job at Moog, and was hired as a numerically controlled (NC) computer operator in the methods engineering group.

Wright had never been interested in manufacturing, but the manufacturing environment at Moog was different from what she had imagined. As the only operator in the NC room, she found herself intimately involved with the manufacturing process as she maintained and changed disks for the computer console and keyed in the handwritten programs devised by the methods engineers. “I enjoyed the independence of the job,” she says.

She moved to the time study group to learn more about the company’s operating procedures. Typing the step-by-step procedures taught her about many of the technical jobs at Moog. She applied for one herself, and one of the engineers helped her learn to read blueprints to pass the exam for the assembly and test department.

Her first technical job was as a tie-wirer, which involved putting safety wire on the critical bolts, actuator locks and valves. Then she became an assembly technician. “Knowing that these parts were going to be used for critical defense applications made us really conscientious about our jobs,” she comments.

BA in HR
With her son in high school and preparing for college, the time seemed right for Wright to complete her own education. She got her BA in human resources from Medaille College (Buffalo, NY) in 1992. Moog’s tuition reimbursement program helped make it possible, and her managers and supervisors supported her, giving her the flexibility to complete her degree.

Why human resources? “I had always been involved with employee and organizational development initiatives,” she says. “They were interesting to me and compatible with HR. It seemed like the perfect fit.”

Contract admin
Her first job after graduation was in the contracts department. It actually meant a pay cut, but she understood this was necessary to get back into an environment where she would have opportunities for advancement. Besides, “Having direct contact with the customers was great.”

Her boss, Ann Everts, also finished college after marriage and a family. “We understood each other and had a lot in common,” says Wright. “Ann was really a great mentor.”

Wright began as a repair administrator, handling contracts for returned goods. The relationships she had formed in the assembly and test areas were valuable in her new position, especially when she met resistance from engineers who still saw her as a technician.

“That experience built my self-esteem,” she says. “It gave me the confidence I needed to move into the other positions I held later.”

She went on to associate and senior contract admin before applying for a position as a program manager. Typically, only engineers in the company became contract program managers, but nontechnical people were slowly beginning to move into the area. In 1996 Wright got the job, and the international exposure that went with it.

Giving back
Wright was invited to join Moog’s Minority Advisory Committee when it formed four years ago. She has worked in developing recruiting strategy to increase the number of women and minorities at Moog.

Wright and her husband moved to the suburbs when her son was in junior high. “The difference in the schools and the counselors was like night and day,” she says. Her son got the direction and tools he needed to succeed.

Now Wright herself works with elementary and intermediate school children as a technical advisor for the Buffalo-area Engineering Awareness for Minorities program. She’s also active in other community organizations, from a local affiliate of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs to the Buffalo Region of the Empire State Federation of Women’s and Youth Clubs. And she’s a member of Zonta International, the worldwide organization of women execs.

“I like to have a lot on my plate,” she says with a smile. “I love motivating people and helping them to realize some of the many options they have.”

Wright completed an MS in global business from Daemen College (Buffalo, NY) in 2002. She credits her parents for her self-determination and confidence, and Moog for its recognition of individual talent and enterprise, and its generous tuition reimbursement program.

“We may all take different paths to reach our destination, but the important thing is to have a dream, believe in yourself and never give up,” Wright declares.

D/C

– Kate Colborn & Christine Willard