REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. (Sept. 9, 2024) – It is hard to top an assignment at the Pentagon, but 2024 just keeps getting better for Sharne’ Rice.
As Rice finished a six-month developmental assignment in the U.S. Army G-6 Deputy Chief of Staff Office, she received notice that she was a nominee for the North Alabama Chapter of Federally Employed Women's annual Redstone Women Rock awards. For Rice, the nomination itself was a rewarding recognition of the work, but when her name was announced as the winner?
“I just thought, ‘Wow,’” Rice said with a laugh. “I was very surprised by the outcome but very grateful that people value the hard work that's been done recently. So overall, I was very excited.”
Rice received recognition for her efforts as the product office chief engineer for the Indirect Fires Protection Capability Increment 2 within PM Short and Intermediated Effectors for Layered Defense, or SHIELD, matrixed to the Program Executive Office Missiles and Space from the DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center. It has been a career that she didn’t expect, in fact, Rice said that growing up in Huntsville, she was adamant on not becoming an engineer. Rice stayed firm in her decision at Auburn University, studying applied mathematics to become an actuary.
“I graduated from Auburn in 2010 had no desire to come back to Huntsville because my mom was an engineer on Redstone Arsenal, and I said I was not going to do what my mom did,” Rice said. “But graduating during the housing crisis, lo and behold, there weren’t a lot of jobs available, so I started working on the Arsenal in 2011 for a small contractor with AvMC.”
What changed her mind, she said, were the breadth of programs and wide range of opportunities that were available. Rice found that she loved her new career field so much that she went back to school and earned a master’s degree in systems and materiel engineering from Alabama Agricultural & Mechanical University. One of those opportunities was leading a team tasked with modernizing cybersecurity at the Pentagon.
“You get to see where a lot of the decisions come from -- that is something interesting that we don't see back at Redstone Arsenal, where we see our products and impacts of those decisions later down the road,” she said. “It's been a very different experience -- a challenging experience -- but also a great opportunity. I have always worked in technology and different improvements, but rarely see the policy side of things. I encourage everyone to open your aperture to understand how the Army works at different levels.”
Rice won’t be stationary long as she is about to begin another developmental assignment, this one within the Army’s Counter-- Unmanned Aircraft Systems program. It is that open-mindedness for new experiences and new challenges that has served Rice well in her career and what she would advise young female engineers starting their own.
“Take a chance on yourself,” Rice shared. “Always bet on you at the end of the day. You might get told no, as things come about. That's part of leadership and part of you growing is developing that resilience factor. But nobody is going to bet on you as much as you will. Being engineers, we're overly cautious and tend to be risk adverse, and that can be a roadblock for all the opportunities that are available.”
“Learn to say, yes. Take the risk. It's okay. If you mess up, you'll figure it out. Remember, you are an engineer.”
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The DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center, headquartered at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the Army’s research and development focal point for advanced technology in aviation and missile systems. It is part of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM), a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Futures Command. AvMC is responsible for delivering collaborative and innovative aviation and missile capabilities for responsive and cost-effective research, development and life cycle engineering solutions, as required by the Army’s strategic priorities and support to its Cross-Functional Teams.
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