Aerojet Rocketydne is dead, they just don’t know it yet. Worked there for over 30+ years and just let go thursday, 4/11/24, after dedicating my life to the place (trying to be somewhat anonymous so I don't get sued). To all the L3Harris employees, I’m sorry that Kubasic way overpaid for AR and now is bending over taking it up the a-s to keep his job or get a payout while DE Shaw is demanding to get their money back. I can’t believe I’m saying this because Eileen Drake (AR’s old president) was a horrible person, fired someone for getting the wrong chicken for her lunch, but she rode Kubasic around like he was the town bike. His hard-on for some twisted revenge aimed at Lockheed after being walked out when caught sleeping with a subordinate made him a colossal fool. Or maybe he thought she still worked at AR and wanted a chance to rekindle (fun fact - his affair came to AR and oversaw the single biggest program loss in the last 2 decades before leaving in disgrace). The only thing that makes sense with this layoff is that Kubasic has already been told he is gone but to earn some big walk away money they told him to be the axe man. That way the next CEO doesn’t have to be the bad guy and can start fresh. There is no way he can go on, everyone will laugh at him when he talks about his billion dollar savings and LHNext.
By the way kudos to the other segments on dumping their rejects to lead the AR segment. Look at that AR org chart, it is all that is wrong with DEI. Listen this isn’t going to be a “all DEI is bad” rant, I’ll put more at the end on that, so for now, let’s get back to this absolute fu--ing disaster of a segment leadership team. Again, Eileen Drake was the worst (until now), but she was smart enough to surround herself with competent leaders. Ross Neanderthal is hiring all his inept friends or getting the other segments losers forced on him. Seriously the COO doesn’t have an IQ over 100, customers and suppliers are requesting he never talks to them again. Thanks SAS for sending him over, brilliant move on your part. HR is obviously just way over their head. From the integration until today it is just sh-t show at every turn and a full display of someone that just shouldn’t be in that position, 100% fail. We would have gladly taken the original person HR at close, unfortunately he was clearly smart enough to want out, so that made him a bad fit for this group. CFO and head of engineering, women quotas and Ross’s buddies from Raytheon. Clearly a person with an EE degree is the right choice to run engineering of a propulsion company, pure genius,I’m sure the competition is taking notes and are going to copy that move. Customers really don’t care about making the right technical decisions by someone who has no idea which end the fire comes out, but instead care what the leadership demographic ratios are. CFO couldn’t get a budget out until May, one full quarter in, real decisive decision making on display there. All Ross talks about is needing more women at higher levels, it was starting to get a little weird to tell you the truth, a real hang up for him. I guess since Chris’s front page DEI statement is we need 50% women in leadership and Ross does everything he can possibly do to kiss his a-s. Seriously, every quote he has is something Chris already said. I guess when you lick his a-s you spew his sh-t. The new president of space sector didn’t know what Artemis was, seriously 39 engines on the vehicle, NASA’s biggest program, and her old segment even made the avionics boxes, but couldn’t place the name. But hey it’s a woman in her 40s so that is all that matters (see it is weird, right Ross’s fetish, you should see his difference in demeanor in meetings when women present vs men). The new guy in strategy was a quick move out of corporate before Thursday’s blood letting, must be a nephew or something of someone in the C-suite to get out at the perfect time, someone should investigate that. I can’t wait to see who the new president of missiles will be and their new CFO, but I have some guesses. It is hard to believe only one heritage AR person was good enough to be on segment leadership team, now that both presidents are gone. I think we can all agree the BD lead must have na--d pictures of the above-mentioned a-s licking. They were stupid enough to buy AR for about a billion too much, but no one at AR was good enough to lead going forward, fu-k you and your egos, I bet you all think you are doing a great job. Google Dunning-Kruger effect, but I’m sure you think it doesn’t apply to you, they never do.
Ross has no idea how to be a leader, he is incompetent at every level. He came and lied through his teeth at the roadshows after close about how we were going to increase investment and how the people are what L3Harris really bought. This layoff was completely unnecessary at AR, we have the work and were already lean because of the sale, we stopped indirect hiring since when LM tried to buy us. That’s why the laid off were 80% direct workers because that was all that was left. He just has no backbone and can’t even make a smart business argument to his daddy, just keeps licking. The guy has no credibility left. He is a joke. I love how when he was CTO he built up all this big do nothing organization that wasted everyone’s time. Ross gets a big promotion or maybe it was a way to get a liability out of corporate. The new CTO comes in and says this is all stupid sh-t, we ain’t doing any of it anymore. I heard they cut the whole bloated 20+ organization to 2 people. Ross CTO legacy gone in one day, and I do feel bad for those that hooked their wagon to that lame a-s horse.
The only thing that makes sense out of all this is that they are planning on dissolving the AR segment, just think of all that segment OH - 10s of millions of dollars to save. Space sector goes to SAS and Missile sector to IMS. They put these re--rds in charge just to speed up the downfall when the FTC questions why it had to be done. So much for two companies that were American Icons with 70+ yr legacies, won the space race and probably the cold war. Like I said at the opening they are already dead, they just don’t know it yet.
So I wanted to finish the thought on DEI. I think there are many positives to some of the aspects. For one, I think when you are college recruiting it’s good to have some goals and make sure the company moves in the right direction over time, capitalizing on all the potential talent out there. College hires are a cr-p shoot anyway and there are enough spots to go around, - this guy was on concrete canoe team while this gal was on the model UN team, but this one was a TA – I can’t tell which is better, just pick one. But once you get in the door there shouldn’t be an invisible hand pushing you ahead in the race. I welcome having ERG groups as resources to support our diverse employee set if they need it, but we shouldn’t have programs that skip you to the front of the line for the better and desired positions based on your race and gender. Real recent experience: our group had to pick someone for one of the corporate L3H accelerate programs, the advertised most important requirement was the nominees had to be very high potential or performer. We supplied the names, but all got rejected because it didn’t meet the unsaid “expectations”. We then found a woman, who is a perfectly good employee, but just hovering in the middle of the performance curve. She never showed any ambition to be a leader, but she is now on the fast track, congratulations. And there lies the problem, when you have programs like that, you can never fully trust that the leadership is competent and made it there because of their ability or hard work and you can’t be a trusted leader with that hanging over your head. It does a disservice to all, especially women and people of color in the long run. So looking at the AR segment org chart can you tell which ones are DEIs either here or at their former companies and which ones made it on their own merits? Trick question for AR segment it was all the former, they openly brag about it.