2017 Aviation Week Program Excellence Symposium and Awards Banquet

The Aviation Week Network's Program Excellence Initiative was created in response to repeated concerns about the complexity and difficulty associated with managing and leading the aerospace and defense programs that make up the industry's work.

The evaluation process for the awards includes identification of lessons learned and best practices. These will be presented in the Aviation Week Network Program Best Practices Symposium, and will cover areas such as reducing the development cycle, cost/affordability, and how to effectively integrate best practices from other companies and industries. The Program Excellence Awards Banquet will be held following the symposium, a celebration of the best in industry program performance and execution.

The Program Excellence Symposium is the industry's leading networking event for those involved with programs large and small across the commercial, space and defense/security sectors.

Aviation Week has brought together a wide-ranging field of engineering, program and business executives to discuss where A&D programs and technologies will be heading during the next decade, including:

• Dr. Heather Wilson, Secretary of the US Air Force
• Shay Assad, Director, Defense Pricing, US DoD
• Gene Fraser, VP, Corporate Programs Quality & Engineering, Northrop Grumman
• J.D. McFarlan, VP, F-35 Test & Verification, Lockheed Martin
• Dan Collins, COO, United Launch Alliance
• Paul Corkery, Program Manager, ATP, GE Aviation
• Laura McGill, Chief Engineer, Air Warfare Systems, Raytheon

This year's symposium will provide insight on:

• The future of space from a defense perspective
• USAF acquisition priorities
• How the Pentagon plans to do business going forward
• The range and depth of capabilities needed for 2025 and beyond
• A look at how the commercial air transport sector is shifting toward a broader, more flexible air mobility concept
• The future of defense aircraft programs
• Three program management best practices that will help you improve performance...today!

Sponsored by Siemens PLM Software, the symposium will be capped off by the annual Program Excellence Awards Banquet - honoring the best in performance from across the industry.