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Aerospace Manufacturing

The U.S. remains a leader in aerospace manufacturing, where good paying jobs can still be found

The U.S. remains a leader in aerospace manufacturing, where good paying jobs can still be found.
The aerospace industry directly employs roughly 500,000 people and another 1.6 million people in affiliated companies supporting the industry

The numbers for American manufacturing might look grim, but the U.S. can count one sector as a strength, aerospace manufacturing.

The industry is still a leader in providing high-wage jobs and economic prosperity. The aerospace industry generated $150 billion in exports in 2016 and had its largest trade surplus at $90 billion, according to the Aerospace Industries Association.

This surplus beat the next five largest exporters combined.

The aerospace industry directly employs around 500,000 people and an additional 1.6 million people work in affiliated companies supporting the industry. And it’s a lucrative career path too, with the average worker making $93,000 a year in wages and benefits.

Almost one-third of the workforce are equipment mechanics and technicians with median salaries of $63,000 a year. But a more highly-skilled aerospace engineering career can net an average of $110,000.

The industry is pioneering new technologies in advanced manufacturing, like 3-D modeling, printing and robotics. This is leading to better fuel efficiencies for aircraft and driving down costs. Altogether this industry is flying high and will continue to thrive in the U.S.

To find out more about how you can start a career in aerospace manufacturing, click here.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.