A series of firsts with Kerry Lunney

When Kerry Lunney took the plunge into engineering at university, never did she imagine that her career ahead would be filled with so many highlights and “firsts” that would lead to her current role at Thales as the Country Engineering Director. How did she do it? By seizing opportunities. Here is her story.

Kerry’s career as an engineer began at the Department of Defence with a cadetship to complete university in the mid-1980s. One of her first taskings was collecting weapon firing data from trials conducted on the old Royal Australian Navy’s Oberon Class submarines, while the Collins Class submarine was still ‘on the drafting board’.  

“My role was to analyse the data but it was thought I would gain a good understanding if I could experience how the data was created and collected in the first instance,” Kerry says. “One opportunity to do this came when I got to fire a Harpoon Missile - a dummy version of course.”

Soon after, Kerry joined Rockwell Ship Systems (which became Boeing) and spent the next seven years on designing, developing, integrating and testing the Combat Systems and Ship Management Systems for the Collins Class submarines. 

“This was a very exciting time,” Kerry notes. “I was working with a great group of people, I had the opportunity to work on state-of-the-art technology still under development, and I was learning new things all the time while being guided by a great mentor.”

Kerry was promoted to Deputy Engineering Manager with Rockwell /Boeing and says her next move came about because of a very progressive manager who could see her potential while working on the submarine program.

“He was a very forward-thinking man and could see qualities in me that I didn’t know I had. He put me in touch with a group of senior engineers who were starting to talk about systems engineering in Australia,” she recalls. “I was the youngest one there by a long shot - I was still only in my twenties - but they made me an inaugural member of the Systems Engineering Society of Australia (SESA).”

That ‘progressive’ manager continued to help guide Kerry’s career, steering her towards new paths and sometimes even into moments she describes as terrifying experiences.

“He said the Systems Engineering Society needed to drum up some interest and attract members in its first year, and a conference would be the best way to do that. He then went on to tell me I was going to organise it,” she laughs. “I remember being petrified. I’d never done anything like that in my life. But I got to it and it ended up being a great event, and oddly enough, that led me to Seattle.”

Boeing had established a Fast Tracker program for young achievers and Kerry was selected for the program. In fact, she was the first person in Boeing Australia to be considered.

“So, I packed up and moved to Seattle,” she says. “I was leading the Joint Architecture Team on the proposal for the Wedgetail project. That went for around two and a half years, and eventually we won it.”

Kerry then moved back to Australia, or so she thought, and decided to take on a new career path.

“I needed a change of pace, so went into the gaming world, working for an American company called GTECH doing everything from Powerball to the Lottery systems and Instant Scratchies. It was not just the provision of the game but also all of the financial, tax, marketing and redundancy systems behind them. A lot of our contracts included building data centres, gaming terminals and networking the entire system across the country or state. A lot of my colleagues had defence experience, as the way we approached a problem and backed up our analysis was well regarded and similar, in ways, to the gaming industry.” 

Instead of being based in Australia as she’d anticipated, Kerry found herself living as an expat for over five of the following seven years.

“That was never part of the plan,” she chuckles. “But with GTECH, I ended up being an expat in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Amongst this time, I was also regularly travelling to the United States, New Zealand, Singapore and China.”

When asked about how she ended up in all of these locations Kerry pauses to contemplate the answer.

“I guess I was sent to solve problems and gain the confidence of the customer,” she says. “If something wasn’t going quite right, I’d often get asked to fix it. I enjoy solving problems, so that period of time was a lot of fun.”

In 2006, Kerry was introduced to the possibility of joining Thales Australia through a colleague working for Thales at the time. What was attractive to her was the possibility of working on both Defence and non-Defence projects for the same organisation, allowing her to apply her skills and experience, particularly in Systems Engineering. This was also seen as beneficial to Thales and Kerry was soon working for the organisation across multiple domains.

Kerry settled back into life in Australia and over the next few years Kerry would blend her experience in both the defence and commercial worlds with the projects she undertook with Thales. 

“I really enjoy the mix of both worlds that we operate in, and I’m lucky to have that experience so I can speak the language for both,” she says. “It really helps in the systems engineering world to be able to communicate effectively with whatever audience or discipline you’re engaging with.”

Another unexpected highlight for Kerry came not long after returning to Australia.

“I’d only been back in the country for a month and I went to the SESA annual conference, the first one I had attended since 2001,” she recalls. “It was proposed that I consider running for the next Presidency, and before the conference was over I was elected as President of SESA for the next two and a half years.”

In 2010 Kerry was the first person in Australia to be awarded the Expert Systems Engineering professional qualification – an international qualification from the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). To date, there are still only four people in Australia who hold this qualification.

Then, in 2015, another highlight occurred when Kerry was elected to represent Asia Oceania on the Board of Directors for INCOSE. Then, two years later, she was asked to run for the role of President of INCOSE.

“I said no,” she laughs. “I said no half-a-dozen times because I knew how much time, effort and travel it took to be the President. Thales had supported me well in my board role as Director for Asia Oceania, but the role of President would take a lot more support.”

Thales Group and Thales Australia’s Chief Technical Officer, John Best, caught wind of the opportunity, despite Kerry not mentioning it directly, and told Kerry they’d support her if she was interested in running for the role. 

“I actually thought I’d have no chance of being elected because I was up against this extraordinary, well-known man from the Netherlands. But, to my surprise, I won. So now I’m the President, after holding the position of President-Elect for two years. I also can’t thank Thales enough for all the support they’ve given me.”

Kerry says that when she looks back at her career to date, none of the moves or highlights were ever intentional.

“Absolutely none of them were planned,” she laughs. “But it just shows what happens when you make the most of opportunities. If it doesn’t work out, so what? Just learn from it and move forward from there. There is always something else that will attract you, and then make it happen or move on.”