By Leona Donaldson

There was a time that a black polypropylene box filled with magnetic tape — also known as a VHS tape — was king of technological innovation, its throne a video cassette recorder. It was in the late 1980s that five-year-old Adam Shepherd, now Northrop Grumman Fellow for digital engineering, popped a VHS tape into his VCR. Scrawled in cursive on the label: “Top Gun.”

Adam marveled at the airplanes in the movie, intently focused on building something like them with his toys, breaking them apart and rebuilding. “I was inspired by how those planes worked, building them and taking them apart. I love seeing the manifestation of a design I once had in my mind,” Adam said.

Adam’s inspired building and optimizing led him on a journey that has resulted in his work forging innovative technologies across Northrop Grumman’s portfolio of some of the most advanced airplanes in the world.

The Joy of Building

When Adam was 11, he began planning a tree house. He sourced wood and boards from dumpsters, brought it to the tree in his yard, and used his dad’s tools to make it happen.

“The only tools he had were a circular saw and a jig saw,” Adam said. “I knew that if I had a different saws, my cuts would be more accurate, and the time and energy I spent assembling my structure would be minimized, but I had to use what was available, and come up with creative ways to build the tree house.”

Sometimes that meant spending a lot of time getting parts right. It was, simply, inefficient, teaching Adam a lesson he carries with him today. “The core principle of building a tree house and designing aircraft are not all that different: use the right tool for the job.”

The First Digital Wave

Adam’s first role in aerospace was at a small defense contractor, where he was impressed by what engineers accomplished without the digital tools he had learned throughout high school. “I viewed engineers who designed airplanes I’d seen in ‘Top Gun’ as celebrities,” he said.

There, he began using computer-aided design (CAD) tools — the new kings of technological innovation — to draw parts. “I realized that there was a tremendous opportunity to improve efficiency through these new tools. It was the first major digital wave coming through the industry.”

Adam transformed the company's processes, removing engineering bottlenecks that wasted time. Sometimes that meant inputting thousands of data points in modeling software to template parts for aircraft. “When it fit perfectly in place, it became more than just a job. It was fun,” he said. “That’s when I became hooked on aerospace.”

When Adam was invited to apply for an engineering role at Northrop Grumman, he leapt at the opportunity. After all, Northrop Grumman was the company that built the F-14 Tomcat in “Top Gun.”

Building Efficiency

Eleven years after joining Northrop Grumman, Adam became an NG Fellow for digital engineering, focusing on how to make aircraft development more efficient, channeling his building prowess and inefficiency-busting mindset into meeting the mission for Northrop Grumman’s customers, who require cutting-edge platforms that can outpace evolving threats.

“In what we do, that usually means a digital intervention is applied to a traditional process,” he said.

Adam analyzed the traditional product lifecycle, rethinking sequential development to get planes to pilots faster. “An early success has been bringing all program stakeholders to a common understanding earlier than ever before,” he said.

That means customers see real-time program status, suppliers rapidly update designs, and Northrop Grumman manufacturing engineers, sustainability experts, and builders are providing feedback early and often. “Together, we’re solving issues in the virtual world before they become a physical reality,” Adam said.

And for Adam, the work never gets old. “I love it when everything comes together seamlessly,” he said. “From building toys to tree houses to airplanes, efficiency is king.”