IWIM 2020 Honoree: Amy Grace, Pratt & Whitney
Amy Grace, Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace
There are many words to describe 2020 Influential Women in Manufacturing honoree Amy Grace. Passionate, innovative, and analytical come to mind, as does the word propulsion, which is defined as the action of pushing forward.
To anyone else, the word may seem out of sorts, but for Amy, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering from Syracuse University, Amy has done just that: kept moving forward.
Amy, who hails from both Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace, began her career as an F119 propulsion systems analyst at Pratt & Whitney. Over her 30 year career with Raytheon Technologies—the parent company to both Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace—Amy’s passion has been applying advanced analysis techniques to enhance customer experience with Pratt & Whitney engine and Collins Aerospace systems.
She made a name for herself leading the deployment of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) analytics to monitor the health of more than 10,000 military and commercial engines. During her career at Pratt & Whitney, she held several positions of increasing responsibility within the engineering organization, including supervisor and Systems Analysis Chief Engineer. In 2016, Amy transitioned from Pratt & Whitney to Collins Aerospace to establish the PHM organization in Engineering. At the forefront of her field, she has led trainings on PHM design, presented at aerospace conferences around the world and, was tapped by the CTO to drive Raytheon Technologies technology roadmap for connected products across the enterprise.
Amy was inducted into the Collins Aerospace Fellows Program in 2018. Amy was one of 300 Technology Fellows selected out of 35,000 Engineers, and along with the other women pioneers in the Fellows program, works to inspire the next generation of women engineers to pursue this path.
In early 2020, Amy was nominated as an Influential Woman in Manufacturing on behalf of her role at Collins Aerospace, but she was still moving forward. Over the summer she shifted from Collins to Pratt & Whitney and is now the company’s Director, Advanced Sustainment.
While at Collins, Amy served as an executive champion for Leading Inspired Females in Technology (LIFT), which is focuses on empowering women in engineering and supporting diversity and inclusion. According to her nominator, Amy is passionate about being a force for change and lifting women up within — and outside of — the organization.
In addition to showing young women what opportunities exist in engineering, Amy has also championed an initiative to educate and empower women to patent their ideas by teaching a “Patents 101” course, in collaboration with legal counsel. According to her nominator, she encourages all women to dream big, innovate, and invent because “‘our world needs your smart ideas!'”
Read her advice to future female manufacturers as well as the 19 other 2020 Honorees by downloading the 2020 Influential Women in Manufacturing E-Book.
