WASHINGTON \u2014 Marion Blakey has been named the next president and CEO of Rolls-Royce North America, replacing James Guyette, who will retire in May. Blakey is also stepping down as the president and chief executive officer of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the influential defense industry trade association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No immediate successor has been named, but AIA’s leadership board \u2014 made up of some of the biggest defense industry CEOs \u2014 is actively looking for her replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although her contract at the organization had been renewed in November to last through the end of 2016, she informed the board within the last week that she was planning to step down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blakey assumed her role in 2007 after serving as the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, and not long after was forced to begin grappling with large cuts in the projected defense budget of the Pentagon \u2014 and by extension, its contractors and weapons builders \u2014 when Washington was unable to find a solution to the national debt issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2011, when the Budget Control Act was proposed as a forcing mechanism in order to get Congress and the White House to make a deal on the national debt, Blakey spearheaded the Second to None Campaign, which galvanized defense and aerospace companies to band together to push Congress to do away with the threat of sequestration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pressure can be seen as one of the reasons the Ryan-Murray budget deal was reached, staving off the across-the-board budget cuts in the 2014 and 2015 budgets. But the cuts are back on the table in the 2016 budget, which was released this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement released Tuesday, AIA Chairman and President and Chief Executive Officer of GE Aviation David Joyce said “AIA has been very fortunate to have Marion’s leadership over the last seven years,” and “under Marion’s guidance, AIA has elevated its role advocating in the best interests of the nation and the aerospace and defense industry.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AIA’s membership has grown 20 percent under Blakey’s tenure, and she said in a statement that “I’m very proud of AIA’s record of achievement these last seven years…I strongly believe we’ve strengthened AIA and better positioned the organization and our member companies to inform and influence the debate on key issues facing our country and our industry in the coming years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her last major speech during AIA’s annual year-end luncheon in Washington, Blakey issued a warning to the incoming 114th Congress and the new crop of presidential hopefuls for 2016, saying “it’s high time they relegate the budget caps to the dumpster of bad policy ideas. The decade-long defense modernization holiday based on the dangerous illusion that history’s zealots have gone on holiday simply must end. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the weeks before the event, AIA commissioned Harris Company to run a voter survey on national security issues, finding that 69 percent of voters “want to increase national security spending relative to the federal budget caps set more than three years ago. This view is shared by a majority of voters across party lines \u2014 83 percent of Republicans, 63 percent of Independents and 60 percent of Democrats.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Introducing those numbers to the aerospace industry crowd, Blakey warned the 114th Congress to “remember those 69 percent of voters who want to back candidates who support more spending on national security. Ask yourself; am I ready to make the tough decisions in the next 12 months to protect America?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n