Making Leaders: Leadership, Design Innovation and a Passion for Doing Things Right - A Conversation with 2024 Promise Award Recipient Mackenzie Mason

In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Mackenzie Mason, Engineering Manager for Space Mission Systems Structural Dynamics at Boeing and one of three Promise Award Recipients in 2024. Mackenzie began her career at Boeing in 2014 as a Structural Dynamics Engineer. Her early contributions to the company were pivotal to the development of the 702MP/MP+ spacecraft, as she provided crucial recommendations to program management offices and customers and led numerous innovations in dynamic loads analysis and testing. Mackenzie spearheaded the dynamic shaker table move at Boeing's El Segundo site, a project in which she had to overcome numerous challenges, including excavation of the structural test floor, removal of a vacuum chamber and reduction of the structural test lab footprint while adhering to an accelerated schedule. Her strategic planning and oversight ensured that multiple satellites completed testing on the new dynamic shaker table with 100% success, completing a $5 million investment. While working at Boeing, Mackenzie also authored a white paper documenting updated NASA methodologies for predicting shock on composite honeycomb structures based on Boeing's actual spacecraft-level shock measurements. Her white paper is now a critical reference for resolving requirement and verification disagreements in new satellite programs.