DALLAS, TX, March 13th, 2002 -- Ernest Levert, senior staff manufacturing engineer at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas, was elected as the national president of the American Welding Society at its annual convention in Chicago on March 3. The American Welding Society is the largest organization in the world dedicated to advancing the science, technology and application of materials joining. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, AWS serves over 50,000 members in the United States and around the world. Levert will spend a good portion of his one-year term traveling the globe, making speaking engagements, establishing business opportunities and encouraging students and other professionals to seek careers in this high-tech field, and spreading the message that education is the key to success.

Levert joined Lockheed Martin in 1986, and has made important contributions by solving vexing welding problems on programs such as the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and International Space Station (ISS).

In 1996, the U.S. State Department mandated that the ATACMS missile be made tamper-proof for international sales. This meant that the warhead skin of the missile had to be welded to the rocket motor - a process that could be accomplished only after the missile was fully assembled and loaded with live ordnance. Levert spent a year developing the procedures and techniques using the electron beam welding process to make this delicate process both safe and effective, enabling Lockheed Martin to offer ATACMS for export.

Missiles and Fire Control also manufactures photovoltaic radiators that are deployed on the ISS to remove excess heat from crew areas. Levert solved another dilemma confronting this program, devising a technique to weld elbow tubing that is just .028 inches in thickness and must retain its interior dimensions to conduct coolant gases. Those radiators are now circling the planet every few minutes on the Space Station, operating as designed.

Levert joined the Navy after graduating from high school in Cleveland, Ohio. After his discharge from the Navy, Levert attended Ohio State University to study welding engineering in the engineering department. He graduated from Ohio State University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Welding Engineering. Adding to his professional accomplishments, Levert was honored last year by Ohio State University as its engineering school's "Outstanding Alumni Award ."

Employing more than 8,500 people, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with additional base operations in Orlando, Fla., and manufacturing and assembly facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif., Chelmsford, Mass., Camden, Ark., Horizon City and Lufkin, Texas, Ocala, Fla., White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and Troy, Ala. The company is a business unit of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration in Bethesda, Md.