Freida Aldrich joined the former Collins Radio Company - now Rockwell Collins - in May 1973 as a way to stay busy during the summer. Thirty-five years later, she is still part of the Rockwell Collins family and can be found working as a principal solutions architect in Plan and Produce Material Management.

According to Aldrich, meaningful interaction with other employees has been the most rewarding aspect of her career. But the way employees interact today is quite different than the way communication took place more than three decades ago.

"The most significant change during my career has been the people," said Aldrich. "The approach to working together and the increased value of the employee is very different than it used to be."

Interacting via personal computers is another big change Aldrich has seen over the years - one she can't picture living without today.

"I still remember the first computer our department got - it had a green monitor screen," recalled Aldrich. "Now, I can't imagine working without connectivity, whether through email, NetMeeting, or Instant Messenger. The virtual office is going to be the opportunity of the future for collaboration."

In 1996, Aldrich received the Collins Commercial Avionics YWCA Woman of the Year Award for her involvement in the small community of Center Point - north of Cedar Rapids - as a city council representative and Sunday School teacher. She also was nominated for the e-Business Engineer of the Year award at Rockwell Collins in 2000.

Despite the accolades, Aldrich remains humble and encourages today's youth to ensure their visions for the future are not limited by their accomplishments today. She also hopes the next generation of Rockwell Collins leaders will carry the things that have differentiated our company into the future.

"Teamwork, diversity, challenging goals, and an opportunity to make a difference - that's what allows Rockwell Collins to stand above the rest," she said. "I hope that never changes."

Michael Rieff joined the former Collins Radio Company - now Rockwell Collins - in May 1973 as an engineering technician in research and development. An amateur radio operator during his teenage years, Rieff had always admired Collins Radio Company products.

"In those days, the Collins [ham] gear was second to none," said Rieff. "I couldn't come close to affording any of it, but I really pored over the Collins advertisements in QST magazine, and knew that I had to work for that company some day."

His dream came true, and not long after beginning work, Rieff was thrown right into his first project - the development of the GRC-171 UHF Receiver-Transmitter for use in Air Force control towers.

"I was assigned to work with a couple of really top-notch engineers who turned out to be great teachers, too," recalled Rieff, noting that was one of the most exhilarating times of his career. "I was able to apply what I learned from them to many future projects."

More than three decades have passed since Rieff joined our company, and one of the things he has enjoyed most is the opportunity to work on communications equipment that is provided to the Armed Forces.

"A strong military is essential for the continued safety of our country," he said. "I'm proud to have been a part of that."

The development of Satellite Communication (SATCOM) technology is one of the most dramatic changes Rieff has noticed since the start of his career. "It has just about done away with any other means of long range communications," he said.

A lifetime aircraft enthusiast, Rieff joined the Rockwell Collins flying club about 30 years ago and, for the past 14 years, has been busy building his own airplane.

"I got started somewhat late in life, but piloting and working on aircraft has turned out to be a real passion for me," he said. "It's second only to spending time with my wife."

James (Jim) Perkins joined the former Collins Radio Company - now Rockwell Collins - in May 1973 as a sales administrator in the government telecommunications division. Today, he is a principal marketing manager in Government Systems.

A native of Monticello, Iowa, Perkins began looking for jobs in Cedar Rapids after his wife was offered a teaching position at Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School. A graduate of The University of Iowa, Perkins wanted to find a position where he could put his marketing degree to use, and Collins Radio Company proved to be the perfect fit.

While he has many fond memories from the past 35 years, Perkins has most enjoyed the time he has spent with our company's engineers.

"I have traveled with so many of our engineers and they all have their own technical knowledge base that has helped me do my job," he said. "But they also have their own technical interests that I have found so interesting in non-business discussions."

One of the biggest changes Perkins has noticed during the past three decades is the change in the qualification level of our new employees - an improvement he believes has strengthened our entire operation.

"I have had the opportunity to meet and deal with middle and upper management of many of the top Defense Department contractors in our industry, and the more I compare, the more I see that we are a very well-run company," said Perkins. "The business processes we employ to capture new business really serve us well."

The opportunity to work on innovative projects keeps the job exciting for Perkins, who cites a program to work on Russian helicopters for the Indian Navy as one of the most interesting opportunities he has begun to work on.

"This is a great company," said Perkins. "I have seen more people leave and come back when they find out that the grass is not always greener on the other side."

Wayne Hughes joined the former Collins Radio Company - now Rockwell Collins - in June 1973 as a hardware design engineer. An Iowa native and ham radio enthusiast, Hughes was leaning toward accepting a position in Minneapolis until the Cedar Rapids-based company sold his wife, Beverly, on living in Iowa's second-largest city.

"Collins Radio invited my wife to make the two-hour trip from Ames to Cedar Rapids with me [for the interview]," said Hughes. "That's when one of the Collins hostesses sold her on living in Cedar Rapids."

Twenty-five years later, Hughes relocated to our facility in Richardson, Texas, when he accepted a position in Aircraft Communication Systems. Today, he is a senior engineering manager in Communications Management and Integration department.

"I often tell folks there are three things you shouldn't get used to: what you're working on, where you sit, and who you work for," said Hughes. "These things change frequently and usually for the better."

An Iowa State University graduate, Hughes feels his product designs have improved over the years in part because of the opportunity he has had to see our company's products through the eyes of many - external customers, engineers, draftsmen, machinists, assemblers and testers.

A member of the Rockwell Collins Leadership Association, the Rockwell Collins Amateur Radio Club, and a regular participant on many of our recreational teams, Hughes has enjoyed the different people has met throughout his 35-year career.

As far as the amount of change that has taken place during the past three decades, Hughes says the introduction of computers into the workplace and the ability to telecommunicate have drastically changed the nature of his work.

"I recently had the opportunity to physically work at Eurocopter's site in Germany while remotely developing software on a desktop in Richardson," he said. "I have been meeting simultaneously with folks from our facilities in Germany, France, Cedar Rapids and Richardson via NetMeeting and our phone bridge. That's drastically different from the way we did things when I started 35 years ago."

Dale Nordby joined the former Collins Radio Company - now Rockwell Collins - in June 1973 as a maintainability engineer.

Born in Minnesota and raised in Wyoming, Nordby had heard of Collins Radio's amateur equipment and our communications involvement with early polar expeditions. However, it wasn't until an interview with an on-campus recruiter during his senior year at the University of Wyoming that his interest in our company really peaked.

"Of the interviews I had participated in, this was the best fit for my interests and my background," said Nordby, who helped maintain Collins' TRC-90 and TRC-132 tropo-scatter communication systems and associated telephone carrier equipment while serving with the Army Signal Corps in Vietnam. "In a six-week period, I received the job offer, was married, graduated from college, and moved to Iowa, which is where I've been ever since."

Now a senior test equipment engineer in Government Systems in Cedar Rapids, Nordby has seen several changes during his 35-year career, many of which he believes can be traced to the introduction of the personal computer.

"The first PCs were placed around our company in the early 1980s," he recalled. "In the beginning, an entire department had one computer to use. Things have really changed since then."

While Nordby is proud of the many diverse projects on which he has worked, he is particularly fond of leading a project to develop a self-contained, automated UHF preselector characterization test set for a new version of our GRC-171 radio.

"It performed in about 12 minutes what had previously taken a technician more than a day to accomplish manually," said Nordby.

A former member of the Rockwell Collins chorus, Nordby has enjoyed the cultural opportunities presented by both our company and the Cedar Rapids community. In fact, engaging yourself in your community is the advice he offers to our new employees.

"Take advantage of and make opportunities to broaden your interests and your associations with different disciplines within our company and in your community," he concluded.

Tom Thurman joined the former Collins Radio Company - now Rockwell Collins - in June 1968 as a design engineer in Test Equipment Engineering. A native of St. Louis, Mo., Thurman was attracted to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, because of the city's small-town atmosphere. In addition, the abundance of opportunities for Collins Radio engineers also caught his attention.

While his career with our company spans 40 years, Thurman actually tested the Collins Radio waters during the summer of 1967. Impressed with his colleagues, who served as positive role models, Thurman returned as a full-time employee the following year and has been with our company ever since.

Now a principal electrical engineer in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Thurman says working with people who "genuinely care" is what has kept him at our company for four decades. He also enjoys working on a variety of projects.

"I am proud to have played a small role in several Government Systems projects including satellite communication (SATCOM), Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTID), Global Positioning System (GPS) Phase II, and a ground-breaking test system known as CTS-81," he said. "We created that program in the late 1970s for the U.S. Coast Guard."

Thurman also fondly recalls his work on the Apollo Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Engineering project in the late 1980s. A Government Systems undertaking, Thurman says it is the most revolutionary project of which he has been a part.

"We learned about the need for software configuration control, roll-back, and all sorts of fun concepts that before had been dry reading in a graduate class," said Thurman.

Although many changes have occurred over the years, Thurman says heightened employee expectations are extremely different.

"The current situation where employees are expected to execute the lean process of continuous learning and improvement is a big change," he said.

Committed to his community as a 21-year member of the Marion Independent School District Board of Directors, Thurman has worked with other Linn County, Iowa, school board presidents to help pass a school infrastructure local option tax.

"That [tax] will have a lasting affect on the future Rockwell Collins workforce and our ability as a company to attract and retain talent," said Thurman.