AMY BURNS SMITH

BACKGROUND

• Raytheon is a $23 billion technology, aerospace and defense company based in Waltham, MA with more than 60,000 employees worldwide. 

• Joined Raytheon in 2009 as Vice President, Communications, Services division, serving customers at 440 sites in 80 countries. 

• Raytheon trains more than 2.2 million people per year, including every active U.S. soldier, every NASA astronaut, and every GM mechanic worldwide.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Managed a team of communications professionals to conduct internal and external communications, media relations, marketing, events, risk mitigation and crisis management. Work spanned from Antarctica to the Arctic Circle.

NASA CASE EXAMPLE

• Raytheon supports the training of astronauts at the Johnson Space Center Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL), a six million gallon dive tank where astronauts practice repairs and upgrades underwater that they will perform in space. 

• NASA turned to Raytheon to help repurpose the NBL when missions slowed due to budget cuts. Raytheon identified other industries that could benefit, such as oil and gas industry underwater training.

• Communications activities included: media relations, video and social media content creation, employee engagement, live and virtual events to generate interest in commercializing the NBL for other industries.

• More than 4,000 Houston area employees kept their jobs while NASA, by repurposing the NBL, continued to keep the facility running.

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