Dr. Gies is an Associate Technical Fellow, within the Chief Engineer’s Office, at Newport News Shipbuilding where he has been employed for over thirty-four years. Over the course of his career, he has been a Program Manager for aircraft carriers and submarines including CVN 79 and CVN 80, COLUMBIA Class Submarines, and VCS Class of Submarines, and he has been an Engineering Manager for machinery systems, propulsion plants, various product lines, engineering offices such as the Washington Engineering Office, and engineering departments over his thirty-four-year career at Newport News Shipbuilding. Dr. Gies is also the engineering professional in residence at Old Dominion University.

He earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1990, a Master’s in Engineering Management in 1994, and a PhD in Engineering Management and Systems Engineering in 2022, where Dr. Resit Unal was his PhD Advisor. He earned all 3 of his degrees from Old Dominion University. Dr. Gies’ dissertation was entitled: “Learning Curve Characterization within Complex Low-Rate Production Environments”. Dr. Gies is also an adjunct assistant professor at Old Dominion.

Dr. Rob Gies

Newport News Shipbuilding

Dr. Gazarik has served Ball Aerospace since 2015 and was promoted to Vice
President of Engineering in 2016. He directs a 2,400 person organization to
efficiently and innovatively meet company operational objectives across $1.7B
broad portfolio of projects and programs.

Prior to this effort, Mike’s career included 13 years with NASA. This included
serving our nation as Associate Administrator for the Space Technology Mission
Directorate from 2011 to 2015. There he managed a portfolio spanning a range of
discipline areas and technology readiness levels to advance technologies for the
benefit of NASA, the aerospace industry, other government agencies, and to
address national needs.

Dr. Gazarik holds the doctorate and master’s in electrical engineering from the
Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as the Bachelor of Science in Electrical
Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

2022 Engineering Manager of the Year

Jana Iezzi-Tumblin   |  VP/ Chief Improvement Officer, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, Inc.