A view from the sky

Marion Blakey was happy when she left college to be a low-level clerk for the federal government. Now, more than 30 years later, she’s one of the most influential dealmakers in the aerospace industry.

From her spacious 17th-floor office in Rosslyn , the new president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) has a view of the city where she forged her own path to success.

She started out directing youth programs at the National Endowments for Humanities. She made her bones as a public affairs director for several federal agencies. She demonstrated leadership heading both the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration.

{mosads}And now the former FAA administrator from 2002 through 2007 is again testing her boundaries by heading perhaps the most powerful trade association representing the nation’s major aerospace and defense manufacturers.

“My career has been one that has been governed a lot by unexpected opportunities,” Blakey said in an interview.

Only on the job since November, Blakey is ready to show her leadership style: calculated, analytical and confident — traits already familiar to lawmakers who have worked with her over the years.

“She is not afraid to make a decision and go with it, “ said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who has known Blakey for years. “She can be very charming and engaging, but she can be tough as nails.”

Her path has not been without controversy. Blakey came under fire for taking the AIA job because the trade group frequently lobbies for the aviation industry on government spending and policies. Blakey has said she was very careful in following federal ethics rules.

Norman Mineta, the former secretary of Transportation in the Bush administration who supervised Blakey, believes the leadership position at AIA is “great for her.”

“My father used to always tell me, ‘Plan your work and work your plan’ … and I used to see that in Marion all the time,” said Mineta, now a vice chairman at Hill & Knowlton.

Blakey refrained from offering details about her own personal story outside of her career. She preferred to keep the bulk of a 60-minute interviewed focused on policy objectives in her past and future.

Near the top of that list is her next objective: where to take the association strategically. In the coming weeks, the association will undergo its first strategic planning exercise in 10 years.

Apart from being a strong voice in national security, economics and safety, Blakey wants to see AIA “increasingly become a source for critical information that is very valuable to people who are asked to make powerful and strategic choices in the coming years.”

“There is no substitute for hard data and really providing critical analysis,” she added.

As the former chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board who took over days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Blakey knows how important it is to be transparent and accurate. “There is no substitute for being as fundamentally clear [as possible regarding] what you do and do not know,” she said.

Blakey, who replaced retiring AIA president John Douglass, a former assistant secretary of the Navy and a retired Air Force brigadier general, brings a heavy concentration on civil aviation and transportation security to the job, contrasting Douglass’s deep experience with defense issues.

At the FAA she has had experience working with the Pentagon and the Air Force in particular on airspace operational issues. “Some of it [defense] is very familiar, other parts I think of what you always hope [for] in a job, and that is the intellectual challenge,” she said.

But she is certain that the key for the aerospace industry and her association is balance among the industry’s defense and civilian sectors.

“When you look at the revenues of our members, we find now that more revenue is coming from the civil side than from the military side and that is a reverse of what has been true only a very short time ago,” she said.

As the head of the FAA, “she pushed the envelope and tried to make us think of the future,” said former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.)

Blakey and AIA already have some weighty issues on their plate for this year. AIA has been part of the Coalition for Security and Competitiveness, which is pressing for the modernization and reform of the export control system.

AIA and the coalition want to see a more effective and transparent export control system and less onerous export licensing. While still protecting national security, AIA contends that a reformed export control process would maximize the benefits of trade and technology cooperation with U.S. allies and friends.

“Export control has been a long-term challenge,” said Blakey, who worked with the Pentagon and the Department of State on the issue when she served as the director of public affairs at the Department of Commerce.

“This administration has been willing to consider a set of recommendations,” she said. “They are common-sense changes from an administrative standpoint to make the process more streamlined and efficient. We are looking to see if those recommendations will become reality really soon.”

While Congress is not under pressure to get involved with a legislative fix until next year at the earliest, AIA is making sure that congressional and presidential candidates are aware of the importance of providing technology to U.S. partners around the globe and keeping the U.S. industry competitive without compromising security.

Another thorny issue for AIA is this year’s reauthorization of the FAA, critical in the country’s ability to move forward to the next-generation air-transportation issue. “In my recent experience, virtually everyone agrees that we need to invest in a satellite-based system,” Blakey said. “The real question, of course, is how to make those adjustments and on what financial basis.”

From the moment she became AIA’s president, Blakey injected the association into the presidential campaigns by pressing all candidates to support NASA’s Constellation program — which will send astronauts back to the moon and to Mars — to ensure America’s leadership in space exploration. NASA already is facing a five-year gap in manned spaceflight, she said.