Aerospace and defense organizational performance

Close the human capability gaps putting your contracts at risk.

StrataMind helps growing aerospace, space, defense, and STEM companies align workforce skills, leadership capabilities, and organizational systems with the contracts they cannot afford to get wrong.

Discuss your challenge

Built by an aerospace operator and business psychologist with twenty years inside high-accountability programs and organizations.

Eric Franco, founder and CEO of StrataMind Technologies, against an aerospace hangar background

Meet Eric Franco

The aerospace operator who became a business psychologist.

Eric spent twenty years inside aerospace and defense organizations before calling himself a consultant.

He managed contract deliverables, ran programs, led talent strategy for organizations of 3,000 and 5,000 employees, and worked in the rooms where schedule, budget, security, and client relationships collide. An MBA and a master’s in Industrial and Organizational Psychology gave him a new way to measure the human capability gaps he had watched affect programs and divisions for years.

That combination of operational experience and business psychology is what StrataMind brings to every engagement.

I didn’t study aerospace and defense from the outside. I managed contracts, ran programs, and fought for budget from the inside, then built the psychological and organizational science to fix what I watched break for twenty years.

Operator first. Psychologist second. Both, Always.

Connect with Eric on LinkedIn

Experience includes

Inside high-accountability aerospace organizations.

The gap between technical excellence and human performance is measurable. And it is closeable.

StrataMind focuses on growing aerospace, space, defense, and STEM organizations that are technically brilliant and organizationally stretched. What worked with a small, tightly connected team may be starting to break as the organization grows, while the contracts at stake leave little room for error.

Does this sound familiar?

The warning signs often appear before the contract failure.

  • Critical knowledge lives with one person

    A departure, illness, or reassignment could take essential program knowledge with it.

  • An audit or customer milestone feels uncertain

    You cannot quickly show whether the right people, skills, and evidence are in place.

  • Growth is outpacing your people systems

    Decisions still run through a few leaders, while roles, processes, and accountability remain unclear.

  • Delivery problems keep crossing functions

    Hiring, leadership, handoffs, and team cohesion are beginning to affect quality, schedule, or cost.

The recommended starting point

Start with the 30-day Contract Readiness Diagnostic.

See where your workforce is ready, where it is not, and which contract requirements may be exposed before an audit, milestone, or delivery problem reveals the gap.

Data is mapped against the contracts and regulatory frameworks governing your work, including AS9100, CMMC, ITAR, and FAR/DFARS where applicable.

Discuss your challenge

What you receive

  • An interactive workforce-readiness dashboard
  • A green, yellow, and red capability heat map
  • A subject matter expert registry
  • A direct map from workforce gaps to contract requirements
  • A leadership briefing with prioritized next steps

Most information is gathered through existing records and short structured conversations, limiting disruption to your team.

Selected outcomes from Eric’s aerospace and defense leadership and consulting work

Measured improvements in workforce and leadership performance.

  • $140M+

    Estimated annual cost impact

  • 20%

    Reduction in first-five-year attrition

  • ~30%

    Year-over-year leadership competency increase

A result with a full story

From 28% attrition to 3.4% across a 3,000-person function.

The risk
Attrition threatened program continuity and the loss of hard-won organizational knowledge.
Eric’s role and response
As I/O Psychologist and Talent Strategy Manager, Eric built a proprietary Talent Health Assessment and designed the R3 recruiting and retention program.
The result
Attrition fell to 3.4%, time-to-productivity improved from 3–6 months to 6–8 weeks, and the work earned a Raytheon President’s Award.

“Eric came in and did a full assessment, including areas we overlooked as key data points. After the first year we saw our attrition drop by nearly 50%, and now we continually run well under 4% year over year.”

Senior VP, $1B in annual revenue

“If your leadership team is new or does not seem to be on the same page, hire Eric. Eric came in with questions and he pulled together a custom analysis that highlighted the right activities to attack first.”

CEO, $200M in annual revenue

I turn your people development budget from an overhead expense into a contract performance asset, with measurable ROI tied directly to delivery outcomes.

Other ways Eric can help

Support matched to the problem in front of you.

The diagnostic can lead into focused implementation. Eric can also step directly into an urgent program, leadership, or organizational challenge.

  • Organizational Readiness Engagement

    A 90-day Aligned Leader Model implementation moving from assessment and gap analysis to an actionable learning plan.

  • Fractional Chief People Officer

    Ongoing strategic talent leadership for founders who need real people infrastructure without a full-time executive hire.

  • Program & Contract Performance

    Direct support for programs facing schedule slips, budget pressure, or cross-functional misalignment.

  • Leadership & Team Development

    Assessment-driven curricula and coaching designed for engineers, technical leaders, and high-accountability teams.

Executive and Quiet Brilliance Coaching

Structured one-to-one coaching for founders, senior leaders, and introverted professionals in technical fields who want a thinking partner with real aerospace and organizational experience.

Could a capability gap be affecting one of your contracts?

Discuss your challenge

A structured approach

Evidence first. Action follows.

Eric connects workforce evidence to contract requirements and business outcomes, then helps leaders focus on the few changes most likely to reduce risk.

  1. Measure the real gap
  2. Prioritize the exposure
  3. Implement practical change

Speaking & workshops

Human performance connected to business outcomes.

Eric speaks from twenty years inside aerospace and defense programs. Every talk connects to contract performance, attrition cost, leadership capability, or revenue.

Discuss a speaking engagement

Speaking topics

  • Understanding and Overcoming Your Inner Critic
  • Authentic Introverted Leadership
  • The RESET Framework: Navigating Revenue Crisis and Contract Disruption

Start a conversation

Ready to see what the gap is actually costing your organization?

No pitch. No pressure. Share what is happening in your organization, and Eric will follow up personally to understand the situation and determine whether a short exploratory conversation would be useful.

Prefer to describe the situation first? Use the form below.