Tracy Elving, uniquely qualified to build partnerships

As a systems engineer for 38 years, Tracy Elving, has a lifetime of experience rooting out manufacturing problems by asking people, “Why are you doing it that way?” A year ago, she joined the staff of the Department of Aerospace Engineering to build partnerships to help businesses recruit aerospace students for internships and jobs, increase funding for research, and connect industry employees with certificates and advanced degree programs.  

Elving brings a breadth of background in industry, having an impressive list of companies for which she has worked, including Rockwell, Northrop Grumman, Pratt and Whitney, GE, United Airlines, and a host of other companies as clients through her 3P Excellence Consulting firm.

Acting as CEO of her own company for 15 years, why did she leave it behind her for this new venture, and why now?

“It might sound corny, but it’s my give back,” Elving said. “I was on the department’s alumni advisory board for five years and wanted to do more. I believe in education and what it can do. And I believe in youth. They ask a lot of questions. That’s invaluable to the success of an organization. Their true value when they’re young is asking why.”

When Elving was an aerospace engineering senior at Illinois in 1985, the career fair was run differently than it is today. Students got a list of the visiting companies. They’d sign up for those they wanted to meet with. Their names were entered into a lottery for interview slots. Elving was fortunate to have an opportunity to meet with an aerospace company more informally.

“I was an officer in the AIAA student chapter. Rockwell’s mid-level managers came to campus and took all six of the AIAA officers out to dinner. All six were offered a job and four of us ended up going to work for Rockwell,” she said.

Elving used that experience in developing industry meet-ups in her new position. She works with companies that are specifically looking to hire aerospace engineering graduates and the department’s event coordinator Courtney McLearin to tailor their visit to campus to their needs.

This academic year, representatives from nine aerospace companies have come to campus: Accenture, American Airlines, Frasca International, Northrop Grumman, PwC, SpaceX, Scaled Composites, LanzaJet, Inc., Airbus, and Boeing. Elving expects to host eight to 10 companies this fall, some returning and some new. She said, for example, American Airlines was looking for 12 coops from universities across the country. Two of them came from Illinois, so that’s motivation for them to come back.

Elving has also been successful in developing business partnerships. This year, Boeing pledged to support the Center for Sustainable Aviation with a gift of $300,000 over three years. The funding will support underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students, high school teachers, and experts in the existing workforce who are working toward a net-zero emissions aviation sector by 2050.

“Research dollars help us attract talented graduate students, which is good for the faculty and the department,” Elving said. “The industries benefit because academia can tackle high-risk research. The corporate world is held accountable in terms of a result. By partnering with Illinois, they can invest in much higher risk reward which potentially provides important outcomes, but also helps train those students they hope to bring into their industry.”

Elving said the department’s variety of certificates and advanced degrees is another way Illinois can work with industry partners to help their employees get more education.

“Getting a certificate in a specialized area is a great entry point,” she said. “They can take three or four classes, all online, and get a certificate, then apply the credit hours to, say, an MEng. It’s good for working adults because they do a project rather than a thesis.”

She can speak from experience in terms of working while studying, too. After graduating from Illinois in 1985, she started working toward an advanced degree. While working full-time and with two small children, she went to Boston University on the weekends and completed her MBA in 2002.