Title: Vice President of Quality and Mission Success

Company: AAR, Aerostructures and Interiors

Location: Clearwater, Fla.

Vicki Colton has been in Aerospace and Defense since 1983, when she entered the workforce at Hughes Helicopter as an electrical assembler on the AH-64A Apache Attach Helicopter program.  Two company mergers and 16 years later, Vicki had worked her way into the position of Senior Program Manager of High performance Work Systems, a company initiative merging self-directed teams and Lean principals. 

During the course of this time she earned several certificates in improvement methodologies, international management, mediation and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. From these beginnings she has worked at Lockheed Martin, GKN-NA, Sabreliner, and Cobham before coming to AAR Aerostructures where she is the Vice President of Quality and Mission Success.

Ms. Colton describes herself as a “navigator,” leading companies through change and improvements that ensure Customer compliance and business success.  She believes her on-going success stems from her mentors, and their investment in polishing rough edges while ensuring her creative nature was well channeled and encouraged.  Her focus today is to offer those same opportunities to others and help set the stage for on-going industry growth and excellence.

A national speaker at conferences on the topics of business, continuous improvement, and innovative concepts, Ms. Colton is currently writing a book entitled “Growing Tomorrow.”