About Mike Ciminera, COA Board Member
- COA Staff
- Jun 22, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 8, 2022
Mike Ciminera played an integral role at Grumman and Northrop Grumman for 51 years. He began his career as a college apprentice at Grumman beginning at the age of 17 and was hired by Grumman after graduation to work in preliminary design realizing a dream of designing airplanes from the age of 12. After spending several years on the conceptual design of the F-14 Tomcat and working as the assistant to its chief designer for eight years, He then rose through the ranks to become Director of Advanced Systems (Preliminary Design), he then became Vice President managing such areas as Advanced Programs; the Systems Group including Electronics, Space and Joint Surveillance Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) Divisions; Electronic Systems Division; JPATS (Joint Primary Aircraft Training System) program; F-18 A/B/C/D Hornet program; and the Joint STARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System) program in Lake Charles, LA. He then became a Sector Consultant for Northrop Grumman, providing technical and program management oversight of y programs including unmanned autonomous systems namely Fire Scout, UCAS (Unmanned Combat Autonomous System), and the X-47B Demonstrator that has landed and taken off autonomously from one of our nuclear aircraft carriers.
Currently, he has completed his second book about the aircraft designers and teammates who created, developed, and tested aircraft systems for Northrop Grumman (the first book being about the aircraft designers and teammates at Grumman). He also lectures and serves on other boards namely: Chair of the Dean’s Leadership Advisory Council of the School of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; President of the Western Museum of Flight in Torrance, CA; board member of the COA (Christian Outreach in Action), a non-denominational center in Long Beach, CA that cares for those in need. He also coordinates the Hot Food Ministry at his church where he and his team have been preparing hot meals for 20 years.
Mike received a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from RPI in 1959; a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (NYU) in 1964; and attended the MIT Sloan School of Business program for senior executives in 1981.
What an inspiring portrait of Mike Ciminera, whose decades of landmark aerospace work are matched by consistent, compassionate community service with Christian Outreach in Action. From pioneering carrier aircraft designs to preparing meals for neighbors in need, he embodies how technical expertise and generous service can coexist seamlessly. This write-up offers wonderful insight into COA’s thoughtful board leadership, and I look forward to more spotlights highlighting your volunteer team’s impactful outreach efforts. -words
Mike's transition from a teenage apprentice on the F-14 Tomcat to overseeing programs like the X-47B autonomous carrier landing is genuinely inspiring. For anyone looking to fine-tune their mouse sensitivity for gaming or precision work, the DIP test tool is a practical resource for accurate calibration.
Mike's five-decade career in aerospace engineering, from the F-14 Tomcat to the X-47B autonomous carrier landing, is genuinely impressive — the range of programs he touched is remarkable. It reminds me that keeping complex information well-organized matters in every field. For anyone converting structured data files, I've been using a handy json to excel converter that handles the formatting cleanly.
What a remarkable career arc — going from a teenage apprentice on the F-14 Tomcat to overseeing the X-47B autonomous carrier landing is the kind of trajectory you rarely see today. Pairing that with twenty years of the Hot Food Ministry and ongoing COA board work is a quiet reminder that serious engineering and steady service to people in need really can travel together. On a related note, when I work through Digital SAT practice modules and want a realistic range before an official score release, I lean on this SAT score predictor to convert raw correct counts into an estimated band.
Reading about Mike's 51-year aerospace journey at Grumman and Northrop Grumman — from the F-14 Tomcat to the X-47B autonomous carrier landing — is genuinely inspiring. The way he pairs that kind of deep technical career with two decades of the Hot Food Ministry and ongoing COA board work is a quiet reminder that service and engineering can travel together. On a related note, when I need to share a long technical document with collaborators, I usually turn a finished PDF into a single PDF to Link instead of attaching it to emails.