For Gina Woullard, persistence and discipline are crucial both on the dance floor and in the vice-presidential office at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Palmdale site.

A dancer since the age of 5, Woullard took lessons in ballet, tap and jazz in her formative years, believing she would be performing on a dance floor after graduating high school.

But nearly 40 years later, that dance background has fueled her work as vice president of manufacturing operations at the aerospace giant behind the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider.

“I’m very, very competitive, I wanted to be the star of every performance,” Woullard says. “Every time you start your dance lessons, you do your stretches, you do your plié. Aerospace, especially in manufacturing, we have our cadence preparation before we go in the execution. I love that correlation.”

It was with this same competitive spirit that Woullard stepped onto the aerospace factory floors. When Woullard graduated high school in 1986, aerospace was booming in Southern California. All her friends were getting into the field, and Woullard seized the chance when a training opportunity opened up. Passing the test, she started as a structures mechanic at McDonnell Douglas Corp. in 1988 before it merged with The Boeing Co. in 1997. She honed her skills and rose through the ranks to manufacturing leadership, mission assurance and product quality, expanding her responsibilities and falling head over heels for the industry at the same time. Then in 2004, she landed at Northrop, where she deepened her understanding and passion for the sector.

“What we do is critical, and what we protect, as far as the freedom of our citizens. It’s incredible to have that responsibility, and it just aligns to my value system,” Woullard said. “That’s when I fell in love with aerospace.”

Leading with a heart

After a successful 17-year career at The Boeing Co., Woullard now leads manufacturing operations for the aeronautics sector at Northrop Grumman, bringing experience navigating both commercial and military platforms.

Her expertise goes beyond the technical ins and outs. Woullard spent the first years of her time at the global defense giant leading people across diverse environments, including in El Segundo and Rancho Bernardo within California, as well as Moss Point, Mississippi, and Newtown, North Dakota. The experience taught her how to lead with passion and juggle her diverse responsibilities with ease.

“That really brought in my perspective from managing in an individual operating environment to working to drive and improve performance across multiple sites and programs,” she says. “That was really pivotal, and it taught me a lot about how quality, affordability, compliance and customer confidence were interconnected.”

Running the Palmdale site, which sits within U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in the Antelope Valley, often demands the exact art of striking a delicate balance. Woullard does not have a typical working day. Her responsibilities span operational performance, production overview, quality assurance and cultivating the next generation of leaders.

To remain resilient, she absorbed influences from everyone in the workplace, including supervisors and peers. She learned everyone’s stories beyond just their names. Initially taking a gap year to work in aerospace, she went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in business management from Pepperdine University and two master’s degrees from the University of Redlands and the University of Southern California.

She also maintained her motivation through the phases of a long career by remembering the impact her work has on the community, especially new aerospace entrants fresh out of college or high school – much like herself when she started. This part of her responsibilities involves overseeing STEM programs with K-12 schools, raising money for scholarships and collaborations with local universities such as Antelope Valley College, where she serves as a foundation board member. The idea is to align everyone’s “true capabilities” with their scopes of work, giving them resources and providing conversations that can situate someone in the right lane of work, according to Woullard.

“I have a leg into bringing them into the company because we’re scaling, and that’s been inspiring and has kept me resilient,” Woullard says. “It’s eye-watering the impact we’ve been able to have, and then to watch them grow so fast as we’re accelerating their career opportunities.”

A changing landscape

The world of aerospace has changed since the time Woullard started. What used to be done with ink and paper is now delivered through digital channels and artificial intelligence, and even within a highly classified line of work, new technologies are making an impact as the industry explores early-stage AI use.

Woullard observes that compared to the past, scaling and solution-finding have become much more efficient with real-time data analytics and communication. With an accelerated technical palette, the value of aerospace achievements has reached beyond engineering excellence and technical performance to also include affordability, speed, digital transformation, workforce development, “and of course supply chain resilience.”

There is also increased demand. The Palmdale site pumps out the fuselage of an F-35 Lightning II supersonic fighter jet every 30 hours, a cadence that used to exist only in commercial settings.

With such an accelerated workflow, Woullard points out that boosting the learning and experience of the workforce at a matching pace is a main challenge. The growth path she took is now significantly shortened, but access to information has greatly expanded, further altering the talent landscape.

With an expanded hiring plan underway, the Palmdale site is set to grow – and Woullard is up for the task. To tackle the challenge, she is focusing on clear communication and garnering the right resources and stakeholders to tackle the full, complex scope of the task ahead.

“It’s a blessing to be seen as a resource,” Woullard reflects. “Yes, we have advanced technologies, yes, we have digital transformation strategies… but it’s the people that are core to everything we do.”