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Three months into his new job as the Group President of MDA in Canada and Mike Greenley is very busy shaping the 49 year old company to the realities of today, including ways to spur growth in a tough domestic market.
MDA, once the parent company of several business units in the U.S., is now one of four business units in the larger U.S. based Maxar Technologies, which it created. The other business units are SSL, DigitalGlobe and Radiant Solutions.
Being a player in the the defence and space sector in the U.S. brings unique challenges due to security issues. To grow the company MDA became Maxar.
Greenley assumed his new role on January 15 of this year. Greenley is an industry veteran having worked 22 years at companies such as Greenley & Associates (his own company), CAE, General Dynamics and most recently L3 Technologies in Burlington, Ontario where he was Sector President.
Changes
In this wide ranging interview, we discuss some of the changes Greenley has made since he came on board and the challenges in growing the business in Canada.
One of the notable changes Greenley instituted was moving senior management to the Brampton, Ontario office. Greenley says the downtown Vancouver office which served as MDA’s corporate headquarters will eventually close. Greenley notes though, he is already racking up the air miles as he now has a dedicated office in Richmond, BC and Montreal. He works where he needs to be.
Greenley also said that one of the reasons why Maxar Technologies moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Westminster, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, was that the state offered “some incentives and collaboration”. That decision was also made easier by having space available at DigitalGlobe’s spacious headquarters there.
Greenley also made mention of a new initiative, only a couple of months old, marketing new robotic kits for companies wanting to develop their own on-orbit servicing operations. This is an MDA led effort within Maxar, and leverages the years of legacy work the company has in the robotics field. It is one of the initiatives MDA is pursuing to build growth from its Canadian operations.
Listen to the interview.
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