In October, Newport News Shipbuilding employee Ashley Cadwallader (O79) presented at the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Global Summit in Atlanta. There she shared the story of the inception, development and success of NNS’ Project Management Shipbuilders Association (PMSA).

During her presentation, Cadwallader shared the PMSA’s journey starting with its humble beginnings. Seven years ago she started the association with just volunteers and the support of senior leadership, with the goal of providing members with the skills, resources and the support needed to excel in the industry.

“PMSA is a valuable NNS employee resource organization with a network of employees who want to learn more about project management, grow in their professional project management experience, and get certified in project management,” she said.

After years of hard work and development, PMSA continues to serve as a hub for networking and collaboration. PMSA now reaches thousands of NNS shipbuilders, promoting project management knowledge, best practices and PMI certifications. Just this year, 26 NNS employees have earned Project Management Professional (PMP) certifications.

“It was really important to share our NNS success story of how we have built this professional community around providing project management resources to our NNS employees. I wanted to give others tactical tools and the direction to go create their own organization at their companies,” Cadwallader said.

Those in attendance voiced their appreciation for the tangible takeaways they could use to build their own project management communities. Cadwallader has even been invited to further present on this topic in other forums.

More than 3,500 project and program management leaders from across the globe attended the conference.