Taylor native Hardy Jackson recently received the Chairman’s Award for spearheading the redesign and recovery effort for the Ship-to-Shore Connector (SSC) propeller blades at Textron Systems. Jackson and the SSC team had to figure out an innovative way to redesign the broken blades while working with the supplier to manufacture more blades with an improved design.
“You can’t schedule innovation, but you can foster the right environment to empower the team to create innovation,” Jackson said.
The team collaborated with Bell colleagues in Lafayette and Fort Worth as well as Dowty, the blade manufacturer, in the U.K. Focusing on ways to analyze factors that break the blades and erode the surfaces was critical to understanding the nature of the engineering problem and figuring out solutions.
Jackson has been with Textron Systems for almost 10 years and currently serves as a Senior Program Manager for Sea Systems. He began his Textron career as the ASV Reset program manager, leading the turnaround of a red program that resulted in the delivery of 500 refurbished armored security vehicles.
Jackson credits the ability to create a shared vision and a motivated team with meaningful, measurable goals as one of the factors for his success.
Jackson is the proud son of William Wayne (Jackie) Jackson and Joyce Haynes(Nochee). He graduated from Taylor in 1994, earned his BSB in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota in 1999, and his MBA from the University of New Orleans in 2015.
He is an avid fisherman, cross-fitter and enjoys traveling with his family.
Jackson recently founded a local peerimprovement and mentoring group, called Project MOVES, with a mission to help at-risk youth chart positive paths to success.
