2023 L3Harris Supplier Conference

Christopher E. “Chris” Kubasik is Chair and Chief Executive Officer of L3Harris Technologies. L3Harris Technologies is the Trusted Disruptor for the global aerospace and defense industry. With customers’ mission-critical needs always in mind, our more than 50,000 employees deliver end-to-end technology solutions connecting the space, air, land, sea and cyber domains.

Kubasik was appointed Chief Executive Officer in June 2021. Immediately prior, he served as Vice Chair, President and Chief Operating Officer – roles he assumed upon the merger of L3 Technologies, Inc. and Harris Corporation in June 2019. Kubasik has more than 30 years of experience in the A&D industry, having joined L3 Technologies as President and Chief Operating Officer in 2015. He was elected Chair of the board in May 2018 after having been named Chief Executive Officer and elected to the company’s board of directors in January 2018.

Earlier, Kubasik was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Seabury Advisory Group LLC, a leading aviation and A&D professional services firm. In 2010, he was appointed President and Chief Operating Officer of Lockheed Martin Corporation, where he also held several senior executive and finance roles. Before joining Lockheed Martin, he enjoyed a successful career at Ernst & Young, where he was named partner in 1996.

Kubasik is a member of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), Air Force Association (AFA), the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), the Navy League of the United States, the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Board of Directors, and the Florida Council of 100.

Kubasik received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business. He also completed the Systems Acquisition Management Program at the Defense Acquisition University at Fort Belvoir and received an Executive Engineering Certificate from Carnegie Mellon University.

Byron Green is Vice President of Global Operations for L3Harris Technologies, Inc. In this role, Green has the responsibility for leading global manufacturing and facilities, quality, environmental health and safety, supply chain management and e3 – L3Harris’ lean operating system. Green has more than 20 years of extensive operations and enterprise continuous improvement experience in large, global manufacturing organizations.

Green joined L3Harris in July 2019 from Whirlpool Corporation where he most recently served as the Vice President of Manufacturing for the North American region. In this role, Green was accountable for production, manufacturing engineering, and advanced program planning for 14 manufacturing facilities and 28,000 employees.

Prior to joining Whirlpool in 2017, Green spent almost 20 years at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, ultimately leading the North American vehicle assembly, producing 2.3 million vehicles annually. In this role, Green had responsibility for advanced program planning and investments, process design activities, and program management and launch.

Green joined Chrysler in 1998 and over the course of his tenure held a wide variety of operations and manufacturing roles, including Plant Manager of several facilities; Vice President, Powertrain – Engine/Foundry Manufacturing; Vice President, Manufacturing for the Jeep and truck division; and Vice President, Manufacturing Engineering, where he was responsible for leading the advanced manufacturing engineering function for the company globally, including process development and standardization, lean manufacturing, and execution of new model launches.

Green began his career as a manufacturing co-op student at General Motors. Upon graduation, he spent nine years in escalating production and manufacturing engineering roles at both General Motors and Ford Motor Company.

Green received his master’s degree in engineering management/control systems from University of Detroit Mercy and his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the former General Motor Institute, now Kettering University.

Jamie Pickett is the Vice President, Quality for L3Harris, a role she took on in April of 2021.  She is responsible for improving the quality of the L3Harris products and services.  Pickett is accountable to develop data driven strategies that result in performance improvement as measured internally and by our customers. 

Pickett joined L3Harris in 2020, as the Vice President of Manufacturing Excellence supporting Integrated Mission Systems. Within IMS, she worked to improve the execution of operations within troubled sites.

She brought over 22 years of automotive industry experience to L3Harris.  At General Motors, she most recently served as the Director of Operations at the company’s flagship manufacturing facility where she led the site to prestigious levels of lean and quality execution during the year of major product launch.    

In her prior assignment, Pickett was a part of the enterprise wide operational excellence organization where she worked alongside Onstar to implement a software quality system and drive productivity throughout the customer experience organization. 

Pickett began her career as an interior materials engineer at General Motors in 1998.  Over the course of her tenure, she held roles of escalating responsibility in product engineering, manufacturing, quality and continuous improvement.

Pickett received her masters’ degree in engineering management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and her bachelors’ degrees in chemistry and textile chemistry from North Carolina State University. 

Balaji Suresh is Vice President, Operations, for the Communication Systems’ segment operations function of L3Harris Technologies. Communication Systems covers a broad portfolio, including tactical and airborne radios, battle management systems, night vision technology and professional and public safety networks and products. 

Reporting to the Communication Systems segment President, Balaji is responsible for providing vision and leadership to the operations function including EHS, e3, quality, manufacturing and supply chain. Balaji joined L3Harris in 2020 as a Senior Director in the segment’s operations team where he held leadership roles with responsibility for the Tactical Communications sector’s supply chain and the e3 and advanced manufacturing functions for the segment.

Balaji spent most of his 20+ year career at the United Technologies group of companies, which included stints at United Technologies Research Center, Pratt & Whitney and Carrier with increasing responsibilities in systems modeling/simulation, supply chain and logistics, continuous improvement and manufacturing engineering. Before joining L3Harris, Balaji was Vice President, Operations, at Taylor Company (a part of Carrier) – a global leader in food service equipment. 

Balaji is particularly passionate about building diverse, high-performing teams and integrating lean, technology and enterprise systems to solve business problems. 

Balaji has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Madras, India, and a master’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida.

Katie Hartman is the Vice President of Supply Chain for the Integrated Mission Systems Segment of L3Harris Technologies. 

Katie moved into the position of Vice President of Supply Chain in July of 2023 after joining L3Harris as the Sr. Director of Supply Chain for IMS in January 2022. She reports to the Vice President of Operations, Integrated Mission Systems. Katie leads all IMS supply chain functions including subcontracts, procurement, compliance, small business, data analytics, process excellence and risk management. 

Katie brings over 17 years of supply chain experience in the defense industry and joined L3Harris from General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems where she was the Senior Director of Supply Chain for the Munition Systems business unit. In her role, Katie was responsible for the planning and execution of the Supply Chain from proposal to contract closeout as well as leading strategic initiatives and business requirements to ensure overall business objectives were achieved. Katie has experience in all areas of Supply Chain Management to include direct procurement in support of United States DoD Customers as well as commercial sales, indirect (IT & MRO) procurement, supply base risk management, international and domestic logistics, planning/scheduling, asset management, supplier quality engineering and operations management. 

Prior to that, Katie served in a variety of supply chain operations roles of increasing responsibility for Raytheon and General Dynamics. She holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Psychology and a master’s in business administration from the Florida State University.

Alex Niles is Vice President of Supply Chain for the Space & Airborne Systems segment of L3Harris Technologies. 

In this role, Niles is responsible for the segment’s supply chain supporting objectives for cost, quality, working capital and on-time delivery. Niles also leads the development and execution of supply chain strategies and metrics to achieve critical continuous improvement and new product development goals. 

The supply chain organization encompasses material planning, procurement, subcontracts and inventory management. The team oversees system and process controls required to maintain government approved supply chain systems.

Most recently, Niles was Sr. Director where he was responsible for the leadership and management of the supply chain function.

Prior to that, he was Director of Supply Chain for the Intelligence & Cyber sector within Space & Airborne Systems. 

Niles also served as Director, Supply Chain for the C4I business unit, where he led supply chain support of SATCOM, UAE, and robotics programs. 

Niles joined the former Harris Corporation in 2016 as Senior Manager, Supply Chain with responsibility for the Wireless Solutions business unit. Niles also assumed a special assignment leading an integration savings initiative in the Electronic Warfare business unit. 

Before joining Harris, Niles held various roles at General Electric in engineering, operations, and supply chain. 

Niles holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Louisville and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Tuskegee University. Niles also earned the designation of Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM) from the Institute for Supply Management and holds certifications in Six Sigma and Project Management. 

Adam Gremli is Vice President of Supply Chain and Materiel Management.  In this role, he oversees Aerojet Rocketdyne’s acquisition and management of materials used to support the company’s programs and infrastructure. This includes the responsibility of managing Aerojet Rocketdyne’s procurement, including both direct and indirect purchases of hardware for liquid rocket engines and solid rocket motors and other applications.

Prior to joining Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2019, Mr. Gremli served as executive director of Global Strategic Sourcing at GE Oil & Gas / Baker Hughes a GE Company (BHGE) since 2015. In this role, he was responsible for implementing and managing the global supply chain strategy for all direct material.

Prior to joining BHGE, Mr. Gremli was the director of Supply Chain Operations for United Launch Alliance where he led key efforts in supplier cost reduction, category management and strategic insourcing with a focus on process reliability, enhanced system execution and continuous improvement.  His early career included 10 years at Boeing in various management positions, including production manager and integrated production team manager.

Mr. Gremli holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  He also earned a Master of Business Administration and Master of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California. Additionally, he is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

Kimberly Ricker is Director of Supply Chain Management for the Communication Systems Segment. 

Kimberly assumed the position of Director of Supply Chain in 2022. In this role, Kimberly supports the CS Supply Chain organization focused on leading supply chain transformation planning and execution of strategies with specific focus on resiliency, total cost and lead time reduction. Currently, she reports to the VP of Operations, CS. 

Prior to joining L3Harris Kimberly worked for Northrop Grumman Corporation where she held several roles of increasing responsibility in the Global Supply Chain organization most recently serving as the Global Supply Chain Program Sr. Manager for the Space Systems, Tactical Space Systems. Kim’s prior work experiences also include procurement and subcontracts management roles at Akima, LLC, CACI Inc. and Bechtel National.

She is a member of APICS and United Way. 

Kim earned a bachelor of science in business administration (Supply Chain Management) from Bowling Green State University and a MBA from Marymount University. 

Kim’s deep experience in the defense industry and versatile background in direct/indirect procurement, strategic sourcing, subcontract management, export compliance and process improvement will be an asset to our businesses while navigating the current supply chain climate.

Kim Miller is a Sr Director of Supply Chain at Corporate Headquarters of L3Harris, responsible for enterprise contracts, compliance and both direct and indirect category management.  She has been with L3Harris for over 3 years, starting in the Integrated Mission Systems Segment before moving to Corporate a year and a half ago.

Prior to joining L3Harris Kim was the Sr. Director of Business Integration and Analytics leading an enterprise supply chain digital transformation. Transforming contracting and supply chain systems, organizational construct, processes, and service delivery.  During her 22-year career at another A&D prime, she held many positions across the lifecycle of supply chain from contracting, business operations, new product development, mergers and acquisitions, supply chain performance and operations, compliance, production support and production readiness. When Kim began her career in A&D she started as an Industrial Engineering Analyst before pursuing per passion around the Supply Chain.

Prior to her career in A&D, Kim worked for a small business that manufactured custom design jewelry where she was first exposed to purchasing, production support and manufacturing.  She has always been passionate about global supply chains and contracting best practices.

Kim received her undergraduate degree from the University of Washington in Business Administration with a concentration in International Business.  She holds a Master of Business Administration in Global Supply Chain from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Carl Critchfield is a Senior Director of Supply Chain at L3Harris Technologies corporate headquarters reporting to the Vice President, Global Operations. 

Critchfield has over 16 years of progressive experience in operations and supply chain management, most of which is in a leadership capacity.

Prior to his current roll Critchfield was a  Director, Operations Strategy with L3Harris corporate headquarters from November 2021 to August 2023 . In this role, Critchfield  responsible for driving and communicating enterprise strategies through process controls and communications with the Operations Leadership team across Quality, Continuous Improvement, EHS, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain.

Previously, he was responsible for the Supply Chain Center of Excellence (COE) strategic initiatives and led the enterprise focus on supply chain compliance, small business relationships, systems, tools, and analytics. He also supported objectives for cost, quality, and on-time delivery.

Previously, he served as Supply Chain Management COE Director for Space and Intelligence Systems Segment for the first year post-company merger.

Prior supply chain management functional roles with the company include procurement, subcontracts, materials management, and commodity management, affording Critchfield a broad set of experiences and perspective.

Before joining L3Harris, he was General Manager at Sonny’s BBQ in Tallahassee, Florida responsible for all aspects of customer relations, profit and loss, human resources, and just-in- time supply chain activities.  He was also a Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley.

Critchfield holds both a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from Florida State University.