Page 50 - Australian Defence Magazine Oct 2020

50 FROM THE SOURCE SCOTT CARPENDALE
OCTOBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
SCOTT CARPENDALE
VICE PRESIDENT & MANAGING DIRECTOR BOEING DEFENCE AUSTRALIA
Boeing Defence Australia (BDA) has a lot on its plate at the moment. Involved in every domain Australian Defence procurement has to offer, the company is facing the challenges head on. ADM Managing Editor Katherine Ziesing spoke to Managing Director Scott Carpendale about how the company is performing and what’s on the horizon.
ADM: Given everything that’s been happening in the Boe- ing world recently, how independent is BDA from its US parent company?
CARPENDALE: We have a large degree of trust from the broader company in terms of what we do here in Austra- lia. Obviously the downturn in commercial aviation due to COVID-19 has had a significant impact to our company as a whole. We are somewhat isolated from that but we’re not immune to it in Australia. Boeing Defence Australia has a level of autonomy around how we
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, em- ployees and businesses. We’ve also continued to heavily invest in Australian Industry Capability (AIC) supporting our programs.
We see ourselves as an Australian company. We’re part of Boeing and there’s a whole range of benefits that comes with being part of the best aerospace company in the world but we’re also very staunchly Australian and very proud to be Australian and that resonates with our people, given the
mission we have supporting our Austra- lian Defence customers so closely.
ADM: Moving to one of those signa- ture programs that Boeing has been working around for the last 12 months or so, (that we know of); Airpower Teaming System(ATS)/Loyal Wing- man, why so secretive about it? Also, the RAAF has put in $40 million to- wards the program. What does that buy them?
CARPENDALE: I didn’t realise we were being secretive about it, Kath! That takes me by surprise. I think one of the things about the program is obviously the stage it’s at. There’s a lot of commercial sensi- tivities from a Boeing perspective, from our suppliers and particularly program- matic sensitivities from our customer that we need to be very mindful of as we go through the program. When we can share more information we’ll continue to do so in a proactive way.
support the ADF as our primary cus-
tomer and how we are able to continue
to support their programs, and we’ve 2019 had a positive year with being able to continue to grow the local capability to support Australian programs. But we’re 2015 also a part of a bigger organisation and
as, particularly our senior leader group,
we’ve got a role to play in ensuring the 2010 ongoing stability and support of the company as a whole.
From a specific day-to-day perspec- 2007 tive, the vast majority of our people and
teams working on projects supporting
the ADF continue to work unimpeded 2002 and we’ve been able to continue to grow
our workforce. So whilst there’s signifi- 2000 cant reductions in the overall Boeing workforce as a result of the drying up 1994 of demand in commercial aerospace,
locally within BDA we have been able
to grow our workforce this year from 1993 2,500, to around 2,800 by the end of the
year as we continue to grow to support
our local customer.
PROFILE
Vice President & Managing Director, Boeing Defence Australia
Director, Commercial Derivative Aircraft Programs
Director, Supply Chain Management, Boeing Defence Australia
Director, Strategic Customer Relationships, St Louis, Missouri, US
Commercial and Contracts Manager, Boeing
Senior Business Manager, F-111 Market Testing (Amberley), DMO
Commercial Management (Canberra), Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO)
University of Queensland, Bachelor of Commerce
I think over time, BDA has really
been on a journey to become an Australian company and we’re quite proud and very staunchly Australian in terms of how we operate. Our entire leadership team is Austra- lian; we have no expats, which is a first for a long period of time. And we’ve also obviously invested in things like a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) to support Australian
In terms of the Commonwealth’s in- vestment in the program, we are work- ing with the Commonwealth continu- ously for both this initial phase and future phases of the program development to ensure that we are taking into con- sideration the needs of the ADF in the design, development and testing of the platform, as well as Boeing’s expectations
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