Director of Software Engineering, Raytheon (retired)
B.S. ASE 1989, The University of Texas at Austin
MBA General Business 1994, The University of Nebraska Lincoln
Susan Kelly retired from Raytheon (now RTX) in 2022 after a 26-year career as a missile systems engineer and program manager, reaching the role of director of software engineering responsible for over 650 software engineers. Not capable of sitting still, she is now a licensed real estate agent in Arizona.
Kelly received her B.S. in aerospace engineering from The University of Texas at Austin while enrolled in the Air Force Reserve Officer Training (AFROTC) and her MBA from the University of Nebraska Lincoln, while on active duty at Offutt AFB, Nebraska.
Her professional career began at Offutt AFB in the United States Air Force specifying nuclear mission planning systems and also installing a duplicate command post. She also was an engineer in Air Combat Command (ACC) and US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) doing modeling and simulation of foreign threat fighters and missiles in support of operational missions for Desert Storm and the Single Integrated Opera,onal Plan (SIOP).
In 1996, Kelly left the Air Force and joined Texas Instruments, later Raytheon, working various missile, unmanned aircraft and other systems. She worked in systems engineering, program management, functional management and business development over 26 years. Her career spanned every phase of system development from early prototyping, development, production and depot support.
Kelly’s career highlights include debriefing three defectors from the USSR and other countries. As a young 1LT, she advised the USAF Fighter Weapons School F-15E pilots on tactics and doctrine. At Raytheon, she helped develop a new algorithm, implement it in hardware, flight test it and field it. She was responsible for understanding performance of the Evolved Seasparrow Missile for the NATO Seasparrow Missile Consortium, assisting with ship integration.
She earned Raytheon Capture Manager Certification in six areas and Raytheon program manager certification. Kelly was also awarded the Raytheon Missile Systems Excellence in Technology Award for 2003, was elected to Raytheon Technical Honors, and received the Raytheon Engineering Excellence in Leadership Award. She was named the July 2011 Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) Distinguished Graduate for 1989. In addition, Kelly has served on the UT Austin ASE/EM External Advisory Committee,
Kelly lives in Marana, Arizona with her husband, Clive Haas. They have two sons, Austin and Kevin, and two daughters, Taylor and Meghan, a son-in-law Chris, three granddaughters, and three dachshunds – Oscar, Oliver, and Chip. Her hobbies include hiking, skiing, astronomy/ astrophotography, cycling, running and quilting.
