Two-time NASA Stellar Awards nominee Erica M. Abrahamson is an associate director at Collins Aerospace in Tolland, Connecticut, where she is responsible for overseeing the company’s entire space systems portfolio, working with operations across multiple functions, engineering, serving as the driving force to ensure the satisfaction of supply chain contractual requirements, and enhancing how members of her department work together as an organization to meet or exceed customer commitments and expectations. Ms. Abrahamson—an alumnus of Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, with a Master of Business Administration, a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering—also is charged with the vital duty of executing the improvement of the space organization’s value stream and delivering the highest quality spaceflight hardware to customers.
Empowered by her personal motto, “You’ll never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have,” Ms. Abrahamson is proud to have faced and endured what she considers the most critical decisions in her career as a program manager helping to design, deliver, and support all of the environmental control and life support systems that will keep astronauts alive when they travel around the moon on the Artemis 1, which was an unmanned vehicle to the moon, and on the upcoming Artemis 2, carrying the first female and African American astronaut. Among their many accomplishments, Ms. Abrahamson and her team even delivered all the necessary hardware for the mission in the middle of the pandemic. Just as notable is when she was a co-creator of the NASA Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle during her years at the aerospace company Hamilton Sundstrand.
Citing several reasons for her success, Ms. Abrahamson, a certified Project Management Professional, acknowledges that she has the ability to effect positive change and fix issues, finding the greatest motivation when problem-solving with a highly functioning team. It is professionally and personally satisfying for her to work through conflicts with others to determine how to succeed. Aligning herself with excellent mentors also has been important to her accomplishments because they helped instill confidence in her by genuinely caring, correcting her with honest feedback whenever necessary, or simply checking on her. It is their support that she believes has enabled her to reach her goals and encourages her to achieve more. One way to give back what she has received is to “pay it forward” as a mentor herself. Thus, Ms. Abrahamson participates in community events that promote and encourage more women to work in STEM areas—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Before joining Collins Aerospace in 2021 as an operations strategy associate director, a precursor to being promoted to her current role, Ms. Abrahamson was a deputy program manager at VSL Orion, a proposal manager at UTC Aerospace Systems, and a supplier development project manager and integrated product team lead at Hamilton Sundstrand after starting her career as a project engineer. With ongoing aspirations for the future, she plans to achieve more in the aerospace industry by continuing to apply her passion for problem-solving and exploring different opportunities. Ms. Abrahamson will accomplish this, in part, by expanding and diversifying her knowledge of industries, businesses, product lines, and customers.
Caring deeply about the well-being of individuals in her community, Ms. Abrahamson is a supporter of The Cornerstone Foundation, Inc., a non-profit, faith-based organization that since 1982 has kept local homeless people and others safe, fed, housed, and clothed through its shelters, community kitchen, clothing bank, food cupboard, diaper bank, mobile food pantry, constant community outreach, and special events. The mother of a daughter and a son, Ms. Abrahamson enjoys walks on the beach with her children, cooking, and trying new recipes.
