Executive Bios — Norm Johnson

Norm Johnson is Vice President of Product Development for EMS Technologies’ Defense & Space Systems Division. Appointed in 2005, Johnson provides strategic direction and management for EMS’s Product Development area, currently consisting of 130 employees in engineering, manufacturing, and integration and test.

Johnson joined EMS in 1982 and has spent his career in multiple program management and operations roles. His primary focus has been improving operational structure and processes. In 2002, Johnson became Business Area Manager for Defense & Space System’s recovering Space Electronics Business. Under his three-year leadership, the business area increased new orders from an initial $600k to over $20M and transformed product development to account for nearly 50% of the overall business.

Johnson has also served as the Vice President of Programs for Defense & Space Systems where he reinvigorated the program office, establishing clear lines of authority through new procedures and delineation of specific program performance objectives. The group’s profitability improved from a PBT loss of over $6 million in 2001 to greater than $4 million in profits in 2002.

Johnson’s early engineering and operations assignments and responsibilities helped drive reengineering of the EMS space and defense operations. Under his leadership, the division set in place metrics and key operational structure and processes. During this period, EMS expanded its capabilities into ASIC’s for space and all of the engineering processes required to obtain EMS first ISO certification were documented and released.

Johnson holds a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.