Apprenticeships: A Path to Unlimited Opportunity

As we celebrate National Apprenticeships Week for 2020, I wanted to share a little about my own journey as an apprentice and how Lockheed Martin continues to evolve their early career offerings.

I was lucky to be offered an apprenticeship with a company called Singer Link-Miles back in 1987 - back then it was 4 days a week in the plant and Wednesday 9am to 7pm at the local technical college - Northbrook in Worthing, UK. The thrill of getting through the qualifications in 1989 and taking on my first international assignment is something I still remember.

Since then, my career has taken me from through engineering, to program management, to business development and then into more general executive roles. There has been a huge amount of variety and quite a few challenges but that original apprenticeship, where I got to see every aspect of our technical operations, enabled me to understand how an engineering business works from the ground up and still stays with me today.

There have been some pretty special moments - watching the sun rise over Rio with the Brazilian Navy, surveying the wreckage of a Hawk simulator in Kuwait after the Gulf War, breaking ground on a training facility in Seoul and right up to being on board for the commissioning of both HMS Queen Elizabeth & HMS Prince of Wales, the UK's new 21st century aircraft carriers.

Lockheed Martin UK is an incredible place to be an apprentice, it's just a little bit more structured than the one I undertook all those years ago! You can find out all about our apprenticeship offer by following this link : https://lmt.co/2S5feVH

One of my favorite days of the year is when we hold our graduation for both apprentices and those completing our graduate program - it's so inspiring to see them reach that point and embark on their career journey. I always give them the same message, that completing the apprenticeship is just "the end of the beginning" and that there really isn't anywhere an apprenticeship can't take you.