In 1989, he met a senior General Dynamics executive at a trade association meeting, and when offered the chance to join the company as vice-chairman for a year and then move into the CEO slot, he leapt at the opportunity. He spent that interim period getting to know the company’s businesses and culture and studying, with the assistance of Bain & Company, the massive changes roiling the industry as the era of lofty defense spending came to a seemingly abrupt halt. This year of study enabled him to hit the ground running when he was formally named CEO.
