Where leadership and identity meet · Lockheed Martin Ethics in Engineering Case Competition, February 2026
Leadership and identity meet at ethics. The most useful thing I have learned about values is the difference between one that is decorative and one that is binding. A value is only real once it has cost you something, and in engineering that usually looks like saying the number is not good enough while it is still cheap to say. [confirm you want this framing, or replace with your own]
Lockheed Martin Ethics in Engineering Case Competition
Rice team, through RCEL · February 2026 · [add: location]
Lockheed Martin runs a national case competition where university teams analyze an engineering ethics case and defend their position in front of Lockheed engineers and executives. I was on Rice's team, coached by Dr. Van Kleeck and Dr. Webb through RCEL. We spent about two months on the case and built an in-depth system diagram of the problem before the trip.
How far we got: Rice made the quarterfinals [confirm: quarterfinals out of how many teams, and the final placement].
Who I met: Lockheed's Vice President of Ethics, Compliance and AI. Handshake on stage, lunch on day two, and I gave him an RCEL challenge coin. He still has it.
What I learned: preparation is what gives you the confidence to speak up, and advisors and judges only know what you show them. On a team of very smart people the person who does the reading is still valuable, because everyone is human and no one can read everything.
Where it led: RCEL asked me to moderate this year's engineering ethics panel because of the competition. I also came out of it with a mentor at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control and a standing relationship with the VP.
[placeholder: photo] file: assets/leadership/lm-team.jpg The Rice team at the competition. Team photo, or the group with the advisors.
Rice's team at the 2026 competition.
[placeholder: photo] file: assets/leadership/lm-stage.jpg On stage, presenting or the quarterfinal handshake.
Quarterfinals.
[placeholder: photo] file: assets/leadership/lm-coin.jpg The challenge coin, or the handoff if someone caught it.
The RCEL challenge coin.
[placeholder: image] file: assets/leadership/lm-diagram.png The system diagram from the case prep, if it is shareable. This is the kind of depth-of-artifact piece that impresses beyond a resume.
System diagram from the case analysis.
Moderating the RCEL ethics panel
"Ethical Decisions: The Engineer's Responsibility" · Rice Center for Engineering Leadership · November 3, 2026
RCEL asked me to moderate this year's engineering ethics panel on the strength of the Lockheed competition. The panel puts practicing engineers and faculty in front of students to work through real ethical decisions from their careers. I write the question script, brief the panelists ahead of time, and run the room. [update after the panel: who sat on it, the questions that landed, what you took from moderating]
[placeholder: photo] file: assets/leadership/ethics-panel-moderating.jpg You at the front of the room moderating, panelists in frame. Ask whoever runs RCEL media (Taofeekat or Jesse) to shoot it from the audience, landscape, before the lights go down. A wide shot of the full panel works as a second file (ethics-panel-wide.jpg).
Moderating the RCEL ethics panel, November 2026.
[placeholder: photo] file: assets/leadership/ethics-panel-wide.jpg Wide shot of the panel and the room.
The panel and the room.
Also
[add: anything else you want here, e.g. how ethics shows up in the rocketry work or in running SASE]