Philip A. Fawcett packed a lot into his time at Georgia Tech – earning a bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree in just seven years while also garnering the much-coveted Sigma Xi Outstanding Dissertation Award before he left in 1992.

Now a principal engineer within the Aerospace Corporation’s National Systems Group, Fawcett is quick to point out that his meteoric success at Tech was fueled by one simple thing.

“I just kept going, putting in a lot of hours to get that PhD, because there was more to learn about airplane design and I wanted to learn it,” he said during a March 27 visit to campus.

“Unfortunately, when I graduated, the bottom had temporarily fallen out of that industry, so I didn’t get a job designing airplanes. And I’ve never worked with airplanes since.”

But don’t look to Fawcett for regrets. Turning this early career obstacle into a launching pad for success is just one of the five lessons he shared with us.

1. Don’t assume your current career plan is the only path to enjoyment. Keep your focus flexible.

“When I couldn’t get a job doing airplane design [with a PhD] it was very frustrating at first. This was my passion. I’d planned it since high school. I was set on working in each of the subsystem areas so that I could eventually become the chief engineer of a major design effort.”

The original plans didn’t work out. But reality worked out even better.

“I decided to not get too wrapped up with what I wasn’t doing,” he said.

“I took a job at Aerospace doing work on launch vehicles and was dubbed the proverbial ‘rocket scientist.’ I began to see it as an adventure. Yeah, I’d studied the aerodynamic design of low-speed vehicles and they wanted me to work on high speed ones, but it was still a real job, and it was still engineering.”

Accepting that adventure has allowed Fawcett, a Florida native, to put down roots in Los Angeles , Colorado Springs, and Chantilly, Virginia (just outside Washington, D.C.) It has also given him a chance to work on some of the most exciting aerospace projects of our time, including the Titan IV program, where he provided critical aerodynamic analysis.

“I’ve been able to work on launch systems from concept to design, doing cost analysis, risk assessments, testing,” he said.

“None of it involved airplane design, and I couldn’t be happier.”

2. Look for a workplace that’s as flexible as you are.

Ambitious by nature, Fawcett has always kept his focus sharp by looking for new professional opportunities. He found those opportunities in the Aerospace Corporation, where he has held nine different job titles in the past 23 years.

“I’m not saying that if you come to work at Aerospace Corporation you have to be ready to change jobs all of the time, or even that you would have that opportunity,” he noted.

“But if you bring a good fundamental education to your work [there], and you are driven, there’s so much you can do. Some of my colleagues have remained in their departments for decades because it’s what they love. And that’s great. But for me, the ability to take on new challenges has been great.”

3. A doctorate can open a lot of doors.

“If you have the curiosity and the drive, earning a PhD is worth it,” he said.

“All employers have check-lists of qualities that they want to see in their top players. At a highly technical company like Aerospace, having a Ph.D. provides an extra edge to help put you at the top of their consideration for the loftier jobs. Colleagues don’t

ask you to prove yourself when you have a doctorate because they know that you’ve already gone the distance, tackling the hard problems that took you years to solve. Your depth has been tested. If you don’t have a Ph.D., and you are looking to move up, I would expect to see evidence of your tenacity and accomplishment somewhere in your work.”

None of this suggests that a PhD should rest on his laurels, he notes.

“I may not be doing all of the grinding calculations now, but I’ve got to be knowledgeable enough to know when those calculations need to be done and savvy enough to analyze them when they are completed. It’s a different level of challenge now, but the same values of hard work and attention to detail are what count.”

4. If you have a professional goal that’s a little outside the box, put yourself in the position to pursue it. Then: work hard and plan harder.

While at Georgia Tech, Fawcett took almost enough courses to earn a minor in international affairs. His interest in the subject never entirely disappeared, even as he was climbing the corporate ladder at Aerospace.

So when he heard that his company offered a seldom-utilized Brookings Institute Congressional Fellowship, Fawcett was intrigued.

“I researched it, like any good engineer -- got the names of the three previous employees who’d done the fellowship, and asked them to tell me about it,” he said.

“Because I had just been made manager of a new department that I’d created, I figured out the best time for me to do the fellowship so that my department would have minimal disruption. And, then, I walked into the vice president’s office with a plan.”

The result? An Aerospace Corporation-funded, year-long Brookings Institute fellowship in the office of Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, where the erstwhile airplane designer was responsible for tracking issues, developing recommendations, and pursuing legislation in the areas of housing, the environment, manufacturing, and Chinese currency manipulation.

“If I’d walked into another VP’s office, I might have gotten another answer. I know that. But I did my homework, and I was able to convince my employer that this would help the company in our dealings with the federal government. It has. And it’s also been one of the most exciting opportunities of my career.”

5. Strong communication skills – oral and written – are a must

“It is amazing how often I see extremely talented engineers who cannot communicate - whether it is a technical paper, a point paper, an email, or a briefing. The ones who truly shine are the ones who can speak or write about a complex issue in very simple terms or with very common analogies. Senior leaders and decision makers don't have technical backgrounds that span every field, and in many cases don’t have a technical background at all. So when an engineer only uses specific technical jargon, he will have only limited success. The ones who describe complex issues using simple language are the ones who find themselves in front of those senior leaders time and time again.”