Eagerness to change and relocate built Laura Bogusch's successful career at Boeing

Laura Bogusch recalls regular excursions with her family as a child to Chicago O’Hare International Airport. “It was like a tourist attraction,” she said. “Whenever friends came to visit us in Downers Grove, we’d take them there to see the new United and American terminals, traipse around and watch planes take off and land.” That early interest in aircraft became an impressive career with The Boeing Company. Her path has been both determined and selective as she changed jobs from research to management and locations, from Seattle to South Carolina and back again.

“I love telling people how I got my job with Boeing,” Bogusch said. “A good friend introduced me to a Boeing recruiter, who I stayed in touch with throughout my undergrad and graduate degrees. When I was close to finishing, I asked the recruiter if I flew out to Seattle, could I interview. I paid $157 for a round-trip flight and got my job.”

Bogusch said she interviewed for several different jobs at the time.

“I chose to join a research and development group working with using composites for a commercial airplane. It was a perfect match because as a graduate student, I was in a research group looking at manufacturing processes to make aerospace-worthy composite components.”

Unfortunately, Bogusch had an allergic reaction to uncured composite materials. She had to move out of the lab, but where she moved next wasn’t a good fit.

“I said, ‘this is not the kind of engineering that I like to do.’ I reminded them that although I’d been working in materials, I had an aeronautical engineering degree and that conversation led to an opportunity to join the Boeing product development team to design and build a new airplane.

“We had a blank piece of paper. It felt like senior design class all over again — doing the conceptual design of this airplane that eventually turned into the 787 Dreamliner. It was great to be a part of something from the beginning.”

Instead of the traditional build-up of aluminum panels riveted together, the 787 would boast the first composite fuselage, which brought many engineering challenges.

“We decided to make it in one piece, circumferentially. Because it was one piece it wouldn’t require fasteners we had to figure out how to make a very large, composite shell that met our quality standards. Porosity, for example, can cause grief with composite materials. We had to have good vacuum integrity while going through the autoclave, making sure we had good dimensional stability. And we had to figure out how to move something that large around the factory to install parts. There were just a lot of things that hadn't been done before at Boeing.”

Bogusch said customers were thrilled with the finished product. The 787 was a lower-weight airplane that was more fuel efficient, could be pressurized at a lower altitude, and didn’t corrode like aluminum.

In the first 15 years of her career at Boeing, Bogusch went from development to being in charge of the aftbody factory in North Charleston, South Carolina where two sections of the composite fuselage were fabricated.

“I woke up one day thinking, I’m either going to be known as the composite fuselage girl for my whole career, or I need to let people know I want to do something different.”

She became the chief engineer for the Boeing P-8 Poseidon, a military product that started out as a commercial airplane.

“It was like starting over again. I moved back to Seattle without knowing a single person I’d be working with, but it was a lot of fun to learn new things. I got to lead in a space where I wasn’t the technical expert.

“It’s probably more common for folks to grow up in one area, but to be honest, I think it's my desire to move around between operations, manufacturing and engineering that has given me a much broader view of the company, of the life cycle of our products, of the things that are important in upfront design.”

Bogusch said having very different experiences allowed her to see the industry through different lenses and exercise, not just technical knowledge, but also leadership capabilities.

“It's different to lead a team of technical experts versus a team of mechanics on the shop floor — learning to communicate clearly and translate complex ideas is an important part of being successful. All of that led me to the role I have right now.”

In 2019, Boeing restructured its engineering division into 14 functions. Bogusch leads the digital and systems engineering function — an umbrella that includes 10,000 of the company’s 60,000 engineers.

“I like to say in our function that we bring people and data together to find the best solution in a complicated environment with many different needs.

“I've gone from being in a very physics-based world to a place that requires a lot of engineering judgment. You have to be comfortable not having all of the data and information. You need to make assumptions, test them, make judgments and move forward. Otherwise, you will just spin forever wanting more data.”

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Bogusch earned a B.S. in aerospace in ’95 and an M.S. in theorical applied mechanics in ’97 and today volunteers on the Department of Aerospace Engineering’s alumni advisory board. In 2016, she was awarded the department’s Distinguished Alumni award. As a Boeing employee, she participated in what is now called the Leaders for Global Operations at MIT which added an M.S. in management to her vita.

Because of her experiences, being a role model for future female engineers is important to her. When she came to Illinois as an undergrad, there were 75 students. Only four were women. She is proud to say that, although a much smaller group graduated with her, all four women did.

“At Illinois, most of my classmates were with men. At Boeing, I was the only woman and eight years younger than everyone else on the team. Fortunately, many of them were old enough to have daughters who were pursuing careers in a STEM field.”

During the five years she worked in Salt Lake City, Bogusch seized opportunities to encourage women in STEM fields by being the face of Boeing to the state of Utah.

“Boeing remains committed to promoting STEM education, even in primary school and junior high, to capture their minds and excitement early so everyone can see engineering as a career path and an opportunity in front of them.”

Her advice to young female aerospace engineers is to communicate where they see themselves contributing.

“I spent the first portion of my career trying to blend in and not be noticed for being different. As I gained more confidence, I was able to be myself, which is the most valuable thing people can be. Because if you’re comfortable bringing your full self to work, you’re going to be more productive, more creative and more participative. I really value that Boeing creates an environment where people can bring all of their unique contributions to make our products better and the company better.”