Above: Manager Vera Martinovich, shown at the controls of a DC-3, is remembered as an engineer, a pilot and a tireless champion for the people of Boeing. (Photo courtesy of Martinovich family)

One manager made the biggest difference in getting Boeing's Project VERA, which gives pilot real-time flight-test data, off the drawing board. 

Vera Martinovich, who passed away in April 2024, saw the project through from the beginning, when it was a part-time passion project for a small number of engineers, to full-scale development and lab testing and now flight-test airplanes.

The last time Martinovich’s team visited her in the hospital, Darren McDonald, Technical Fellow and flight-test engineer, told her the project had been approved for installation on the 777-9 and, in honor of her dedication to the effort, it was named after her. She responded with a smile and nod. 

In recognition of her work, Martinovich was named to the 2024 Hall of Distinguished Alumni for Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University. Her nomination spelled out a lifetime of devotion to aviation. 

She joined Boeing in 1988, after graduating from Iowa State with the first of six degrees she would earn. She was an engineer and pilot but, above all, a tireless champion for the people of Boeing, wrote Kim Pastega, vice president of Manufacturing and Safety for Commercial Airplanes. 

Career highlights

Among her assignments, Martinovich worked on the 777-300 development program as a flight-sciences engineer, focused on stability and control. She was a member of the 787 team that won the first annual Commercial Airplanes Engineering Excellence Team of the Year Award in 2011 for work on control laws that shaped the 787 and 777X. In 2013, she won her second Engineering Team of the Year award, as a member of the Runway Situational Awareness Tools team. 

She spent the last seven years of her career as a manager in Commercial Airplanes Product Development, leading a team that developed innovations in flight decks, flight controls and human factors for future airplanes.

Martinovich’s passion for aviation extended beyond Boeing. 

• She lived on an airfield. 
• She was married at an annual airshow in Wisconsin, formerly known as the Oshkosh Fly-In. 
• As a pilot she held a multi-engine rating, instrument rating and commercial pilot’s license. 
• She became a flight instructor and had begun the training required to be certified to operate a float plane. 
• In 2008, she began flying historic airplanes and was one-of-few pilots rated on both the B-25 and DC-3.
• She was an active proponent for STEM education.

“Her legacy here will live on in the future of flight deck innovation for next generation products,” as noted in the award nomination. But even more, it is noted, her legacy is reflected in the countless people she encouraged, influenced and supported.