Darryl Davis will present the William E. Boeing Distinguished Lecture at Purdue University on October 26th.

Davis' talk will be at 5:30 p.m. in Stewart Center's Fowler Hall. It is free and open to the public.

The William E. Boeing Distinguished Lecture Series, named in honor of the Boeing Co.'s founder, is administered by the College of Engineering's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Started in 1999, the series features an internationally known speaker from the aerospace or air transportation industries.

Darryl Davis is president of Phantom Works for the Defense, Space & Security (BDS) business unit of The Boeing Company. In this position Davis oversees a billion-dollar advanced, research and development organization that is currently designing, building, testing and/or operating prototypes from the sea floor, to space and into cyberspace.

Fully integrated with the other businesses that make up the $31 billion BDS enterprise, Phantom Works has about 2,700 employees working across the globe. The unit is responsible for engaging customers through advanced, visual modeling and simulation; innovating cross-cutting concepts and technologies; and prototyping solutions to extend current products, win new programs and develop new businesses and enter new markets.

Prior to this position, Davis was vice president of Advanced Precision Engagement and Mobility Systems, a business element of Phantom Works. There he was responsible for working with BDS Profit and Loss Centers and Boeing's Research & Technology organization to help grow the business. Before that posting, he was vice president of Boeing's Global Strike Solutions. In that assignment, he had overall responsibility for providing a coordinated set of global strike solutions for the U.S. military and international customers. Davis was also program manager for the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems X-45, leading Boeing's X-45 team to demonstrate the transformational capability of unmanned combat aircraft.

Davis joined McDonnell Douglas in 1979 in propulsion engineering and has held a series of positions of increasing responsibility within McDonnell Douglas and Boeing. This included business development for the F/A-18 Hornet and for Military Aircraft and Missile Systems, and program manager positions on Advanced Strike Weapons Systems and the AV-8B Harrier II. Davis also served as capture team leader on Joint Strike Fighter.

A former Brookings Institution Congressional Fellow with the U.S. Senate, Davis holds a bachelor's degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue University and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri at Rolla.

A reception will be held in the West Foyer lobby of the Stewart Center immediately following the lecture.