Bill Gattle – President of Space Systems, L3Harris Technologies

In this episode:

We meet Bill Gattle, the President of Space Systems for L3Harris Technologies, Space and Airborne Systems Segment, which covers an extensive portfolio of solutions in intelligence, surveillance, small satellites, electronic warfare, and avionics. Previously, Bill was President of Space and Intelligence Systems for Harris Corporation prior to their merger with L3 Technologies last year. He is also a board member of the Space Foundation, the University of Florida’s Dean’s Advisory Board, and the Astronauts Memorial Foundation.

In this episode, Bill explains what inspired him to go into the space industry in 1987, some of the early projects he worked on, lessons learned in the Harris Corporation-L3 Technologies merger, the growing importance of small satellites, protecting our assets in space, how the creation of the Space Force is changing the space industry, as well as his thoughts on mentorship and the skills that companies like L3Harris will look for in their future employees.

In discussing the steps teachers should take to get their students interested in the STEM workforce of the future, Bill said, “It used to be that we’d have a wonderment about space, so we’d just love the aspect of learning about it. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the mechanics of what we’re learning, we don’t see the wonder of what we’re creating, and what we’re doing. With the world changing so fast, I think we’ve got to create that wonder in students again.”

For more information on L3Harris Technologies, visit their site at l3harris.com.

Introductory and closing music: Paint the Sky by Hans Atom (c) copyright 2015 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/hansatom/50718 Ft: Miss Judged