Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Curran.
Mark, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
SIE was founded in 1981 by Dr. Matthew Creager as a small aerospace consulting firm. Over the years, the company has grown into a preeminent engineering design, analysis and certification house for aircraft modifications, with offices in Chatsworth in California, Seattle in Washington and Madrid, Spain, with about 50 people on staff.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
While early on, the company did both military and commercial work the business model has migrated to private and commercial aviation programs. Every time there has been a major down turn in the economy, we’ve felt the pain. Because we are a project orientated company, and projects start and end, maintaining a constant labor force is a challenge. SIE mitigates that challenge by a mixture of using a limited amount of short term contract labor and developing self-funded in-house projects that we can then sell and or license. This has allowed us to operate for over 36 years without ever laying off a single employee.
Please tell us about SIE.
SIE specializes in large aircraft modifications. Some examples of past work include; converting a McDonnell Douglas MD10 Freighter into a Flying Eye Hospital for the charity organization ORBIS, converting Boeing 757-200’s from passenger planes into cargo planes, converting a Boeing 757-200 into a flying engine test bed for Honeywell Aerospace’s Garrett Engines division, developing a flight test Pylon for GE’s 747-400 and -100 Flying engine test bed, integrating large WIFI Antennas for the South West Airline fleet. Currently, one of our larger projects is the design to modify the Airbus A320 passenger plane into a cargo plane.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
One of my favorite memories from childhood was learning to snowboard at Mammoth.
Contact Info:
- Address: 9525 Vassar Ave. Chatsworth CA 91311
- Website: www.sieinc.com
- Phone: 818 718 2195 x 144
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Structural-Integrity-Engineering-271076352923560/
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