Welcoming Clay Mowry

By AIAA Communications|December 2024

Clay Mowry began his tenure as AIAA CEO in October. He comes to AIAA with a wealth of experience in the aerospace industry and a career-long dedication to supporting students and young professionals. Clay recently shared more about his own career path and his outlook for AIAA. The following column summarizes a conversation at AIAA’s offices in Reston, Virginia, as he dives into his role.

Why did you choose aerospace as your line of work?
Like any kid, I was fascinated by airplanes and the space program. But I never really thought about it as being a career option. Aerospace kind of found me. As I shared before, my career began in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Aerospace, after I finished grad school at Georgetown University. Within three months of taking that job I was in Moscow as part of a U.S. delegation that was negotiating a commercial launch agreement with the newly formed Russian space agency, Roscosmos. Everybody else on the delegation was far, far senior to me. I was still in my mid-20s. As a kid who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s in the Cold War generation, it was fascinating for me to be in the former Soviet Union going to the facility where they were building Proton rockets. It was a seminal moment where I thought, “Wow, this is something I can do as a career, something that could be a lot of fun and have a real impact in terms of what we’re trying to do as a country.”

How did you become involved with AIAA?
I left the U.S. government to help start the Satellite Industry Association. I took that job because I thought it would be intellectually interesting to work on all the issues related to the satellite industry and I would get to meet all the leaders of that sector. After that I worked for Arianespace, which was at the time the world’s leading commercial launch company. I started getting involved in the local AIAA section in the Washington, DC, area, doing public policy and really getting involved on the space side of the Institute. After a few years of paying dues, I took the plunge and became a lifetime member.

Who are some of the business leaders that inspire you?
I’ll go back to my days at Georgetown University, when I was getting my MBA. John Dealy was my professor of strategic management, and he had been the President of Fairchild Industries. I love the way that he viewed teaching at Georgetown as a way to give back, to train a next generation of leaders and to get people passionate about space. He also taught me basic things about management, like the four principles of being a general manager. First, have a plan about the direction of the organization. Second, have the right people and resources in place to execute on that plan. Third, communicate that plan effectively back to the team. And fourth, execute the plan and revise and refine it as you go forward.

Why does the community need AIAA?
Our value proposition is delivering information and connectivity to your professional cohort over the course of your career. AIAA is really in the information delivery business, trying to help get information to our members that is relevant to them during their career, so they can advance, learn, and thrive in their jobs and be recognized for the work that they do.

The important piece of this is to be relevant to individual members throughout that entire career arc. From when you’re starting to get interested in the field in middle school and high school. When you’re studying in college and graduate school, we want you to be coming to our events, publishing your first technical paper with us, and being mentored by one of the more senior members. Then when you get out of school and start your first job, you’re engaged in our regional activities and national events. As you progress in your career, you might chair a technical committee, start mentoring, giving back, and inspiring the next generations. You’re getting recognized over the course of your career, coming to our awards events and meeting people from around the world. All of that is an information flow. Then, from a corporate member standpoint, AIAA should be a resource to recruit and retain the brightest minds.

What do you see as the unique needs of students and young professionals?
This is the most exciting time in aerospace! Tons of students and professionals are trying to figure out how to get jobs and progress in their careers in aerospace, so attracting them to our shows and events is job No. 1. If there are financial barriers to them attending or other things we can do to help bring them in, we’ve got to figure out how we can help. I’m still the president of the International Astronautical Federation, which puts on the annual International Astronautical Congress. This year in Milan, we had 11,200 people attend, and 37% of those who came and presented papers were students and young professionals. A lot of them get there under scholarships from their companies or their space agencies sponsoring them, or they share a room with friends to lower the cost. I want to figure out how to do more of that at AIAA forums.

Most of your background has been in space, so how are you getting to know aviation?
I started my career promoting U.S. aerospace products at the Dubai Airshow, Farnborough, and Le Bourget (Paris), just to name a few. I love airshows and I love the aviation side of AIAA. I’m really excited to get involved again. I couldn’t think of a more exciting time for aviation than right now – when we talk about advanced air mobility, vertical takeoff and landing platforms, supersonic transport – there’s a ton of excitement now. There’s a lot of areas where we’re seeing interest, new technology, and new ideas coming to light. I’ve got a little bit of learning to do to get up the curve, there’s no doubt. I’m sure that sessions at our forums and events and our technical committees are going to help me get smarter quickly.

What is AIAA’s role in advancing technology?
First and foremost, our technical committees and events help to advance the state of the art in technology areas by sharing knowledge, pushing the envelope, and attracting the next generation workforce. We have the credibility and obligation to speak on behalf of our membership to make sure that it’s well known and understood where technology is going and where the industry is heading.

How can AIAA help with the commercialization of space?
Lowering the cost of launches and deploying more assets in space has opened a huge area of the sector to new companies and startups. There’s also a tremendous amount of private capital moving into the market that is driving a lot of innovation. There are a lot more startups that are leveraging space. AIAA can help educate on the sustainability aspect of space – issues like norms and best practices that ensure that everybody can operate up there safely and securely. There’s a huge focus on space situational awareness and coordination of activities in low Earth orbit. AIAA can play a role in this discussion by bringing together stakeholders to talk at our forums and events, people presenting papers on new technologies and areas where we can think about how we operate more safely and securely.

How would you describe the soul of AIAA?
It’s super energizing to be here. It’s been a pleasure for me to get to know the staff, to sit down and dig in on what we do and how we do it, then figure out together how we’re going to lead going forward. The staff at AIAA is passionate about the mission and dedicated to our members. A big part of delivering member services is tied to our digital transformation – having infrastructure in place and communicating with our members through digital platforms. What we used to do in the analog world or in print or by email, now we’ve got to do all that on our phones. And how do we make all that information accessible to engineers? I’m really focused on the delivery of information and how we work to improve it.