Spartan Profiles: Judith Muhlberg

BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER

            The Boeing Company, Chicago, the world’s largest aerospace company with 2001 revenues of $58 billion and more than 14,000 commercial jetliners in service—about 75 percent of the world fleet—is known for products that break the sound barrier.  An equally daunting task is breaking the sound barrier in communication—making sure that the public, the employees, and key decision-makers get the right messages.  That job belongs to Judith A. Muhlberg, J.D. ’86, vice president of communications, who is responsible for the company’s internal and external communications.  

            “It really has been a fabulous job,” Muhlberg notes of her post, which began in 1999 after a 22-year career at Ford Motor Co.  “At the end of the day, I get to tell the Boeing story.  It’s challenging but it’s exciting.”  One of her most exciting challenges was Boeing’s sponsorship of the Concert For America, which NBC aired on Sept. 11, featuring Laura Bush, Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan and a long list of luminaries.  

            Born in Denver, Judith grew up in Cheyenne, WY, and after graduating from college, spent a year studying in Sweden.  She had planned to attend Yale Law School, but was offered a job assisting U.S. defense secretary Don Rumsfeld, then Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford.   “I got caught up in Potomac fever,” she notes.  “But going to law school was unfinished business.” 

            Five years after joining Ford in 1977, she attended night school at MSU-DCL.  “I loved it,” she says.  “It taught me two important things: one, a clear logical path of reasoning and thinking, and two, how to articulate the case.  And that’s what I do today, even though I don’t practice law.” 

            Judith lives in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago, with husband Peeter, and daughters Erika and Madeline.  Her word of advice to today’s student is, “Your student days are not over and you should adopt a strategy for lifelong learning, because the transformations taking place in the business world are getting faster and faster.”