May 23, 2018
Armand Chaput, a senior lecturer in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at UT Austin (Texas ASE/EM), encourages students to keep an open mind about their careers. In a recent lecture to a group of underclassmen, Chaput detailed the odd places his aerospace engineering degree took him—from foreign continents to a few “nonexistent” locations during the Cold War as an intelligence officer in the CIA. For many students, it was an exciting opportunity to hear the extraordinary places an engineering degree can take them, and for Chaput, it was a secret he kept from most people for many years.
“Up until 1993 I was not allowed to say anything about the CIA except what I did as an analyst,” Chaput said. “But I did a lot of other things that popped up and were were interesting.”
Chaput decided early his dream job was designing airplanes, but it almost didn’t happen. After flunking his first calculus class as an undergraduate, Chaput had to retake the course but it set him on an educational path that not only cemented his drive to succeed but enabled almost everything that followed.
“The dumbest thing I ever did was to flunk calculus and the smartest was to retake it and make an A,” Chaput said.
After graduating with his Ph.D. from Texas A&AM at age 24, Chaput served as an Army officer followed by ten years working for the CIA, where he was initially recruited to work as an aerospace system analyst. Instead, he opted to become a clandestine services officer which involved months of specialized training and overseas assignments.
“After seven straight years in College Station, I really wanted to do something more exciting so when given the option I jumped at it,” Chaput explained.
Along the way he learned conversational Japanese and worked undercover as a business consultant. His consulting experience later led to a CIA assignment as an economic analyst which he credits to his engineering education.
“My Ph.D. thesis was on matrix methods of structural analysis,” Chaput said, “and I was one of the few people at the CIA who understood matrix methods well enough to do economic input-output analysis.”
Later, Chaput returned to aerospace engineering through another analyst assisgnment involving reverse engineering of human source and spy satellite data on a Soviet bomber.
Next came an assignment to the Department of State where Chaput served as a member of the U.S. Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty negotiating team in Geneva, Switzerland. Chaput said he, “immensely enjoyed life as a diplomat.”
Chaput’s last CIA overseas assignment took him to the jungles of Africa as a member of a U.S. Air Force team searching for a crashed foreigh bomber. His CIA operational experience and jungle training helped the team find the crash site after a three week search.
Chaput said he has no regrets on the journey his career took and that, “the recipe for an interesting career is to get a good education, don’t be afraid to take risks, and have fun.”
“My early career was interesting,” Chaput said. “I had a plan but I wasn’t afraid to change it so when people said, ‘Hey would you be interested in..?’, I was often off to another adventure.’”
Before joining Texas ASE/EM, Chaput’s aerospace industry career included positions as Manager of Advanced Design and Chief Engineerof the National Aerospace Plane at General Dynamics (GD). After Lockheed Martin bought GD, Chaput led LM’s early Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle effort and served as F-35 Chief Engineer for Weight. He was also on the USAF Scientific Advisory Board.
At UT Austin, Chaput has been teaching the capstone senior aircraft design course since 2008 and serves as director of the Lockheed Martin sponsored Aircraft System Laboratory. He has also served as faculty advisor for the UT AIAA Design-Build-Fly (DBF) and Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) UAS student teams, and for the Women In Aerospace Leadership Development (WIALD) student organization. In 2016 he won an American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) award for his systems engineering education approach.
Chaput’s advice to students is to be fearless in considering career opportunities and to take chances, particularly when you’re young. He said his career has been interesting and he has no regrets.
“The world doesn’t follow your plan,” Chaput said. “The world is happening on its own and if I had stuck to my original plan, I’d probably be sitting in a recliner somewhere reading James Bond novels and wondering about what might have been.”
