Year Inducted: 2020
Sheila Cummings has used her engineering expertise to support national defense and aerospace missions. Pioneering her own company, she has been able to craft a team that can respond to customers’ needs, along the way boosting the state’s technical contributions to the country.
She is the founder, president and CEO of Cummings Aerospace Inc., a Native American Woman-owned small business in Huntsville. Since its inception in 2009, Cummings has led all aspects of corporate operations and strategic development for the company as it has positioned itself to be an industry-recognized leader of aerospace engineering solutions and technologies for
aerospace system development.
In 1995, Cummings graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. She spent nine years as a thermal engineer with the Spacecraft Engineering Division of the Naval Research Laboratory responsible for developing spacecraft thermal control systems and performing system integration and environmental test execution.
She later joined Millennium Engineering and Integration Company (MEI) as its program manager and technical lead for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor program for the Missile Defense Agency. She rose to corporate vice president leading a $30 million missile defense unit, and successfully opened MEI’s Huntsville office. She has provided engineering support to numerous other missile defense programs, including Multiple Kill Vehicle, Airborne Infrared and Enhanced C2BMC.
Since founding her own company, Cummings has overseen expansion to corporate offices in Niceville and Largo, Florida. Cummings Aerospace specializes in the flight sciences of complex aerospace systems development for United States Department of Defense and NASA customers. Cummings Aerospace core competencies include high-fidelity modeling and simulation,
aerodynamics, guidance, navigation and control system development, sensor/signal processing algorithm development, and software engineering. Under her direction, the company recently put forward a patent on missile weapon system guidance, navigation and control solution schema.
Her service to her profession includes membership on the board of directors for the National Defense Industrial Association and the advisory board for The University of Alabama Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics. Cummings started multiple scholarship programs that provide education funding to economically disadvantaged minority students pursuing an engineering, math or science degree and successfully set up a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Eglin Air Force Base that fosters the development of young engineers
through internships.
