Pratt & Whitney Engineer Installed as President of Women’s International Engineering Organization

United Technologies Corporation is honored to join longtime colleague Jonna Gerken at the Connecticut Science Center as she is installed as President of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), a global organization empowering women to pursue careers in engineering.

Gerken is a manager in manufacturing engineering for Pratt & Whitney, where she oversees the program chief manufacturing engineers in their work to help ensure all engine components meet manufacturing readiness levels appropriate to their life-cycle stage. Pratt & Whitney is a division of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX)

Gerken has worked for Pratt & Whitney since 2000, holding numerous positions of increasing responsibility within both operations and engineering. She holds a B.S. and an MBA, both from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Gerken is a life member of SWE and has received several prestigious honors, including the 2016 Petit Family Foundation Women in Science Leadership Award from the Connecticut Science Center.

Founded in 1950, SWE is a not-for-profit educational and service organization that empowers women to advance and succeed in the field of engineering, and to be recognized for their life-changing contributions as engineers and leaders. With approximately 35,000 members across the globe, SWE is a driving force that promotes engineering as a highly desirable career for women through an exciting array of training and development programs, networking opportunities, scholarships, and outreach and advocacy activities.

UTC has collaborated with SWE for more than a decade and is part of the SWE Corporate Partnership Council, which provides funding for SWE programming, a forum for best practice sharing, and assistance for businesses to achieve their hiring, retention and advancement goals for women engineers.

Gerken will be installed as SWE’s President for a one-year term, which will be marked by the theme: Always Connecting, Always Engineering. 

United Technologies Corp., based in Farmington, Connecticut, provides high-technology systems and services to the building and aerospace industries. For more information about the company, visit our website at www.utc.com