Taking Off: New Sikorsky president Lemmo helms company as it builds faster, more advanced helicopters

Longtime Lockheed Martin executive Paul Lemmo recently took over as president of the company’s Stratford-based subsidiary Sikorsky at a pivotal time.

Sikorsky is working to respond to the demand for faster, more technologically-advanced helicopters and secure key government contracts.

Lemmo, who started his new job about seven months ago, says securing those contracts is critical to Sikorsky’s long-term future.

Lemmo started working at Maryland-based Lockheed in 1987 as an engineer. He later moved on to marketing and sales before shifting to running businesses within the corporation. His most recent pre-Sikorsky management role was with Lockheed’s New Jersey-based Integrated Warfare Systems & Sensors.

An opportunity arose to lead Sikorsky, and Lemmo knew he wanted to take it. Now, Lemmo is leading some 13,000 employees worldwide, with 8,000 of those here in Connecticut. Sikorsky does approximately $6 billion in sales annually.

In 2016, state lawmakers approved a $220 million aid package for Sikorsky aimed at securing the manufacturer’s continued presence in Connecticut.

New Haven BIZ recently sat down with Lemmo about his goals and priorities, and what’s next for the company and helicopter technology.

What made you want to take over as Sikorsky’s president?

Sikorsky is such an iconic company. Igor Sikorsky, our founder, was really a pioneer in the industry. We are coming up on our 100th anniversary in 2023.

It’s an opportunity to run a company that has been around for so long. It is a national treasure and asset for the U.S., particularly the military.

What is your top priority?

Sikorsky is a well-run company. I wasn’t stepping into something where I had to do a complete turnaround. It is on a growth trajectory. It is one of the big growth drivers in Lockheed Martin.

My first focus is making sure we perform on the business we have, and deliver for our customers.

We have two major programs that are transitioning from development into full production. One is a helicopter for the Marine Corps called the CH-53K (a heavy-lift model), and the other is the combat rescue helicopter for the Air Force.

Both are going into initial operational testing for their respective customers, and we are ramping up production. We need to make sure we perform on those, finish out the development, get through operational testing and start delivering the production units.

That is job one.

What would be your second priority?

We are in the middle of a competition for the future of our Army business.

The future for Army aviation is the Future Vertical Lift program. There are two subprograms. One is the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA). Our product is called Defiant X. We are partnered with Boeing on that program.

The other future vertical-lift program is the Future Attack and Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA). This is a smaller aircraft that is going to be used to scout and do reconnaissance on the battlefield. (Sikorsky’s FARA prototype is Raider X.) On that one, Sikorsky is bidding alone. We are competing against Bell (a helicopter manufacturer based in Texas).

The first one, we are going to submit the proposal in September, and we expect a decision from the Army next year. The second one, we won’t be writing the proposal until next year, and we won’t be getting a decision until early 2023.

Both of those programs are going to redefine Army aviation. They are not only important for the Army and their future, but they are important for us and our business future, to win those competitions.

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PHOTO | Courtesy Sikorsky

The Defiant X helicopter is designed to fly twice as far and fast as the Black Hawk.

How is Sikorsky moving toward being more digital?

The transformation we have been on to a fully digital company has been a priority for Lockheed Martin for the last five to 10 years.

We need to continue that process and hopefully take it to the next level with the future vertical-lift programs. On the CH-53K program, that is really our first all-digital design. If you walk our manufacturing floor, you would see the operators don’t hold up blueprints anymore.

They are all working with tablets and computers, and wearing augmented reality glasses to look at drawings and see how to assemble things.

It is a much more modern factory than if you came in five or 10 years ago. It is really about efficiency, speed, cost savings for our customers and getting a higher-quality product.

What are your plans for growth?

We are on a growth trajectory right now and that is mainly because of the CH-53K program for the U.S. Marine Corps.

It is a massive program. We are expected to produce 200 aircraft. These are in the $90 million to $100 million range per aircraft.

We were also selected by the government of Israel to provide the CH-53K for them as well.

We see more growth there. There are other countries internationally that we are pursuing for the CH-53K.

Long term, the future vertical-lift programs for the Army are really the future. Assuming that we win those, they will represent significant growth for Sikorsky.

What does the next generation of helicopters look like?

Our offering for the future vertical-lift competition is really a revolutionary helicopter. It is a technology we call X2.

The traditional helicopter has the big main rotor blade and the tail rotor in back. This helicopter has two main rotor blades rotating in opposite directions. The rotor in the back is actually a pusher propeller. X2 was really designed to have a helicopter go twice the speed of a traditional helicopter.

The X2 aircraft have gone in excess of 250 knots (288 miles per hour), compared to a typical helicopter, which goes 125 to 150 knots.

One of the things the Army wanted is to go much faster and be able to get into the fight a lot quicker. The combination of the dual main rotors and the propeller give you maneuverability to get in and out of the battlefield quickly, to be able to move around the enemy and avoid threats on the battlefield.

What are the biggest challenges the company faces?

We are very reliant on defense budgets. When you look at the priorities of this administration, they are balanced among defense and non-defense priorities.

So the question is: Will that take anything away from our contracts? So far, we are very stable and we haven’t seen any of that.

In the future vertical-lift program, we have stiff competition there. Our competitors are going to be very aggressive.

There are two other helicopter manufacturers in the U.S. (Boeing and Bell). There are others internationally that are very prominent and compete with us on the worldwide stage as well.

What have been your biggest contracts recently?

The CH-53K. We were just awarded the next lot, for nine additional aircraft. That is the most recent large contract.

We also build a variant of the Black Hawk called the Seahawk, for Naval applications. We won a contract with Greece this year for a number of those aircraft, as well as Korea, so two additional customers for that product.

What makes the CH-53K in such high demand?

The CH-53K is a descendant of the legacy helicopter, the CH-53E. It has been a workhorse for the Marine Corps.

From the outside, they look the same, but they are completely different aircraft. The K can lift much more weight than the E variant. So when you talk about troops and equipment, it has significantly higher lifting capacity. It has much more range. It is a lot safer and easier to fly for the pilots.

When they get into situations where they have a degraded visual environment — maybe they are flying in sand or heavy rain — the fly-by-wire controls and all the sensors on the aircraft allow the pilot to put it in autopilot. The sensors can see through the weather and the dust.

Additionally, there are a lot of sensors on the aircraft that monitor its health and status.

Are your customers’ needs changing?

They definitely are in a couple of ways. Our customers need to move a lot faster. Traditionally development programs could take 10 to 15 years.

We are going to develop these programs for our future vertical lift in about half the time. So we are building a prototype for one of the future vertical-lift programs in about four years, which is about half the time of a traditional helicopter build.

On the 21st-century warfighting battlefield, our military needs to be much more connected. They need to be able to connect the Army to the Navy to the Air Force, all assets on the battlefield. We have been working to ensure these are the most connected platforms and networks.

Cybersecurity is one of the requirements as we develop these aircraft and ensure all the software, networks and communication links are protected.

Does Sikorsky have other new products or technologies in the pipeline?

The Army has said that Black Hawk will be in the fleet for decades to come, even as they bring on the future vertical-lift platform. So we have a road map for modernization of the Black Hawk that will take us well into the future and keep that platform relevant well into the 21st-century warfighting environment.

We have an innovations group that is always working on the next technologies and products.

We have done a lot of work on autonomy, or allowing the computer to fly the helicopter so pilots can focus on the mission. Also, more sensors to monitor the health of every system on the aircraft.

In the past, we gave a periodic maintenance schedule. If we can monitor the condition of a part, we can tell them when they really need to replace it. That saves a lot of dollars.

As I look to the future of the next 10 to 15 years, there are a number of technologies we will be investing in.

First and foremost is electric propulsion. You have seen the drive for electric cars. The same thing is happening in aviation. I am confident you are going to see all electric aircraft.

Think about how clean that is — no emissions, no use of carbon gases. That is something we see in the future and we are investing in that now.

Are there any safety-related changes being made?

Automation technology. It is not just about the ability to take pilots out of the cockpit. It is about the ability to take control of the aircraft out of the pilot’s hands, when the conditions are such that the pilot is impaired.

It could be a medical reason, or weather or environmental conditions. We have gotten to the point now where the sensors and the control software that drive the helicopter know better in those situations than a human and can take control and fly the aircraft.

One of the big causes of helicopter accidents is when the pilot can’t see where they are going and they fly into the ground, a mountain or a tree. The autonomy technology really helps prevent that. We believe that kind of technology is going to save a lot of lives.

Any changes on the horizon regarding your Stratford presence?

No. Our Stratford presence and headquarters are solid. We have a great relationship with the community and with the state at large. We plan to keep that as our home for the long-term future.

What do you think about Connecticut as a place to do business?

Connecticut has been a great place for Sikorsky to do business for the many decades we have been here. We have had great support from the local communities and the state, to help us with everything from securing the workforce, training that workforce, and incentives to do business here.

We have a very strong supply base in Connecticut. We have over 300 suppliers in the state, who also employ thousands of people. It is a great atmosphere, and that’s why we are still here.

Did the pandemic have any impact on Sikorsky?

We had people out with COVID over the course of the last year-and-a-half. But at the end of the day we were able to meet all of our customer deliveries.

Today we are up to about 50 percent (of employees) in the facilities, and we are gradually increasing that. We have our employees categorized, from fully on-site to fully telecommuting.

We will probably end up with 20 to 30 percent of the workforce who will telecommute from all the time to at least some of the time. We now understand we can have more of a hybrid work environment.

Tell me about Sikorsky’s economic impact on the region.

We have nearly a billion dollars in payroll every year in Connecticut, and that is a billion dollars in the pocketbooks of our employees.

We have put over $600 million to $700 million into the supply base on an annual basis. That trickles down. It is a pretty significant economic impact.

We have 8,000 employees here in Connecticut. Last year alone, we hired 1,000 new employees. That was to compensate for some attrition, but also growth. This year, we will probably hire about half that many, but we are still hiring and growing.

Is Sikorsky having trouble finding manufacturing workers to fill vacancies?

We are in the middle of hiring manufacturing workers, we just brought on 100 new employees this year. We are looking for more. We are finding them.

We have a career pathways program that we set up with the local Teamsters union to bring in and train students coming out of high school. Hopefully they will stay with us and take on jobs.

That has been a good avenue for us to hire new employees for the manufacturing area. On the professional and engineering side, we have had good results with local universities here as well as countrywide.

We are very big in STEM. We try to get out to the middle schools and high schools to talk about what a career in science, technology, engineering and math looks like. It encourages those folks to start working in those fields and intern with us.

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