Congratulations to Dallas SWE’s April Member of the Month: Laura Skola!
Laura is an engineering director for Collins Aerospace and has dedicated 15 years to Collins so far. Laura is also a mother of 2 and her husband J. R. also works for Collins.
She is from the small village of Cobden, in southern Illinois. She knew early in her life that engineering was for her. She attended the University of Missouri-Rolla (now called Missouri Science and Technology) on athletic and academic scholarships where she studied aerospace engineering and played softball.
Sports have been an integral part of Laura her whole life. It wasn’t just the game that mattered, it was extremely important because it made her tough (through hard work), made her coachable (you can never be perfect, but you can strive to improve) and most importantly it taught her about teamwork & leadership. Think about somebody being in a slump, are you going to help them out of that slump to win as a team? Or are you just looking to be the MVP?”
After her sophomore year, Laura began her career with Rockwell Collins as a co-op. She completed several student employee sessions with Collins and ended up transferring to the University of Iowa to complete a Mechanical Engineering bachelor’s degree.
Laura spent 11 years in Cedar Rapids, Iowa working in a division of Rockwell Collins called Airborne Solutions where she worked on primary flight display application software and platform systems engineering. The experiences gained through playing sports enabled her to be a committed and dedicated team-player at Collins and quickly provided opportunities for project leadership roles.
Laura found herself passionate about helping those around her and was drawn to engineering management which was the perfect blend of working on extremely important products and lifting up those around her to help them succeed.
Laura was asked to take an expatriate position at Rockwell Collins to work overseas in Toulouse, France where she led an engineering team for 2 years.
In 2018 Laura Skola moved to Richardson, Texas as a director in Integrated Mission Solutions Engineering, in Collins Aerospace, Mission Systems. The organization she leads is responsible for establishing the engineering vision, pursuing new business and executing the programs within the Integrated Strategic Solutions portfolio. Laura is on the Collins Software Discipline Steering committee which establishes and runs discipline-focused initiatives across the organization and sites. She co-chairs a company-wide software-centric community of practice which shares best practices, new technology advancements and raises awareness of the breadth of software products developed at Collins Aerospace. Laura is involved with Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) as the Enterprise Vice Chair for the Generations ERG and the Richardson Pride site sponsorship. Laura volunteers with “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” and is an advocate for other women across Collins as a mentor, peer and leader.
“To me, SWE is like a big organizational mom. It wraps its welcoming arms around women and says, ‘Come join us! We are in this together and WE are strong!’”
— Laura Skola
“SWE has surrounded me with so many amazing women who have supported me through the toughest moments of my life. I will forever be grateful for their encouragement. It is because of SWE that I have learned to be kind to myself and never give up.”
— Laura Skola
