From Mount Mercy to a high-flying career

Mary (Kafer) Klaus ’88 used her computer science degree from Mount Mercy University to help launch a career that has soared to remarkable heights.

For more than 20 years she has worked as a Senior Staff Engineer at renowned aerospace company Lockheed Martin, coding and testing cockpit displays for fighter jets. The northeast Iowa native resides in Keller, Texas, with her husband, Drew.

“I’ve been at Lockheed 24 years and 22 of those I have worked on the F-35,” Mary explained. “The F-35 is the most advanced stealth fighter aircraft for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines — and we’ve built it from the ground up.”

The software developed by Mary and her team provides pilots with situational awareness and command and control capabilities.

“I love spending time in our lab with our pilots,” Mary said. “If they think something is wrong or not according to our requirements, I go in and help debug and come up with a solution for the issue.”

It wasn’t the career path she anticipated when she graduated from high school in Elkader, Iowa, part of a class of 52 students. Her Catholic upbringing and the size of Mount Mercy made the Hill a perfect fit.

“I knew I wanted something small because my high school was incredibly small. It was far enough away from home but close enough to go home when I needed to.”

Mary had taken a programming class that she enjoyed in high school and landed upon computer science and math as her majors at Mount Mercy. But the world of computers and software development in the mid-1980s bore little resemblance to today’s high-tech world.

“It was a time before the internet — before you could easily search for colleges and career options,” Mary recalled. “When I graduated from high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with a computer science degree. I didn’t understand what my options were at the time.”

Connections made at Mount Mercy helped chart the course that would become her professional career. A manager at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids took classes at Mount Mercy and asked Mary’s advisor if he had any students that would be interested in part-time work. That part-time opportunity eventually led to full-time employment and 12 years working in avionics at Rockwell, before later moving on to Lockheed Martin.

But Mary says those job opportunities might not ever have happened, and her academic career at Mount Mercy might not have gotten off the ground, if not for the scholarships and financial support provided by the university.

“That’s how I made it through college — scholarships, grants and work study” Mary recalled. “I don’t remember a year where I haven’t donated to (Mount Mercy) scholarships because it’s what helped me through college. I still had student loans, but obviously it was much less than it would have been if I hadn’t gotten scholarships.”

Gaining hands-on experience also played an important role in her career ascent, and she highly encourages today’s students to get as much professional exposure as possible.

“I know at Lockheed we even hire high school interns,” Mary said. “Although I would like our interns to return to our group each year, I recommend they try multiple departments for exposure to different types of software. By the time they graduate, they could have three or four different groups and understand the system a little better. It also helps solidify the department where they want to work because it’s not always about the job — sometimes it’s about how the people in your group treat you too. I think that applies to any major.”

"I love working flight displays. Pilots amaze me. I can’t believe they can keep track of all the information that we present to them." —Mary Klaus, Computer Science | Lockhead Martin

Mary said a computer science degree today has endless possibilities. Computers have become so ingrained in our lives, opportunities range from gaming to web development to working at companies like Google or Apple. Today’s students can truly do whatever they want to do.

For Mary, her unexpected path ended up being avionics and flight displays, for which she is very grateful.

“I love the field that I’m in,” she said. “I love working flight displays. Pilots amaze me. I can’t believe they can keep track of all the information that we present to them. It’s been interesting. It’s been good.”