MAY 2019 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 21
CORNER OFFICE
GSE DYNAMICS CEO ANNE SHYBUNKO-MOORE
HITTING HER TARGETS By JAMES BERNSTEIN
Anne Shybunko-Moore, chief executive
officer and owner of GSE Dynamics
Inc., a military contractor in
Hauppauge, has gained a reputation
over the years as a leading advocate
for the manufacturing industry on
Long Island. She joined the company
in 2001 and became owner and CEO 16
years ago. The company was started
by her father, Daniel, a Grumman
engineer, in 1971. She serves on
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Long Island
Regional Economic Development
Council and, in 2016, founded Ignite,
a manufacturing consortium on Long
Island.
You were once pretty much alone
as a woman heading a defense company.
Have things changed over the
years? Absolutely. In the last 10 years,
I’ve seen a sea change. Marilyn Hewson
is CEO at Lockheed Martin. Eren
Ozman is owner and president at Sierra
Nevada Corp. But at the beginning,
I had to prove myself. I had changed
careers. I was in physical therapy
before. Then I went into aerospace.
I had to become more confident. I felt
I needed to learn to have a stronger
voice.
Do you see yourself as a leader for
women? I never saw myself as a role
model for women.
But women have come to see you
that way? Well, because of the choices
I made and the personal changes
I made, suddenly people may see me
as a role model. The young women
within the industry look up to me.
I try to steer them to science, technology,
engineering, and math in
schools.
How has GSE Dynamics done since
you took over? When I first came to
GSE in 2001, we had under $10 million
in Defense Department contracts and
we employed about 23 people. Today,
we have close to $100 million in DOD
contracts and we have 76 employees.
Two years ago, we were ranked No.
10 in terms of small business volume
by the Defense Department and
ranked No 1 for woman-owned small
business.
What accounts for that kind of
growth? We have been very strategic
in our work with the government and
prime contractors. A few years ago,
we entered the world of composites.
We were ahead of the curve on that.
We haven’t let metal work go, but
there’s more composite work now
than there was 10 to 15 years ago. The
composites are more flexible and
stronger.
What makes up the majority of your
work? We are very much involved
with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S.
Navy. We deliver periscopes and
antennas for Navy submarines. We
also have contracts to build devices
for Army tanks. All our work is
military.
You play a very active role in
promoting manufacturing on
Long Island. How is it doing?
There are 3,000 manufacturing
companies here and 70,000 employees.
These companies all say
they could grow if they had more
support from the state. Many trade
organizations in the state are funded,
but we have not been able to get our
trade organization funded. It’s hard to
get a solid answer as to why. We have
an organization called Ignite. It’s an
advocacy group. We’re helping companies
with development and their
workforces.
What do you think is one of the
manufacturing industry’s main
problems? Image. It needs a rebranding.
We have to get parents of high
school and college kids to see manufacturing
is not back in the
old days of putting bolts
and rivets into metal.
Today, it’s research
and development,
materials science.
Things like that.
Are the schools
in line with
manufacturing
today? They
are not connecting
with
manufacturing
c ompa ni e s .
They are not
connecting
to the
core competencies, to the work we
are actually doing. I don’t think they
teach the career pathways.
Is there a future for manufacturing
on Long Island? There better
be. Without it, this region cannot
survive. We rely on manufacturing,
tourism, and the health industry.
All three face
the same challenges
and are impacted
by the same issues.
We need to get
people to talk
about coming
to Long Island
and staying
here and
w o r k i n g
here. It is all
a matter of
branding
ourselves.
“Two years ago, we were ranked No. 10 in
terms of small business volume by the Defense
Department and ranked No 1 for woman-owned
small business.”
Anne D. Shybunko-Moore is CEO and Owner of GSE Dynamics Inc.,
which specializes in providing complex structural assemblies
direct to the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Army, as well as Major
Aerospace Primes.
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
