Margery E. Hoffman
BSCE 1975, MSCE 1976
Aircraft Systems Integrated Product Team (IPT), Lead (Retired)
Naval Air Systems Command
"A great leader empowers team members by asking for their ideas and insights, encouraging open communication and collaboration among members, and celebrating diversity in their education and experience, gender, age, race and cultural backgrounds."
Margery Hoffman was born and raised in Elkhart, IN. She graduated from Elkhart Central High School and studied at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, majoring in math and physics for two years. She transferred to Purdue for Civil Engineering and concentrated in Structures.
Margery completed her bachelor's degree in December 1975 while playing varsity tennis. Desiring to learn more about structural reliability, acoustics and fatigue, she stayed at Purdue and completed a master's degree in December 1976.
Upon graduation, Margery took a job at the U.S. Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory Structural Test Facility at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. She designed, conducted, formulated analytical techniques and published results of fatigue crack growth tests in aluminum alloys. She was selected by Wright Laboratories to attend George Washington University and obtained a Doctorate in Science degree in 1989 from the Civil, Mechanical and Environmental Engineering Department, specializing in probabilistic damage tolerance analysis and risk assessment.
She began working for the Naval Air Systems in 1989 in the Airframe Fatigue and Fracture Branch, researching the effect of wind and maneuver loading on metallic airframe fatigue life. In 2000, she took a one-year assignment with the Tomahawk Strike Planning and Execution Management Office, and from there, served as Aircraft Systems IPT lead for the MH-60R test aircraft build and first flight.
From 2011 to 2017, Margery managed a project for the Office of Naval Research that involved a complex system integration into an Unmanned Air System for a future P-8A maritime patrol aircraft anti-submarine warfare mission.
She met and married Dr. Paul Hoffman, a Villanova University Civil Engineering professor and USAF reserve officer while at the Flight Dynamics Laboratory. They recently celebrated their 30th anniversary. They have one son, Johannes, currently studying at the Brooklyn Law School. They moved to Wellsboro, PA in 2014, where Margery serves on the executive board of the US Professional Tennis Association- Middle States Division, coaches high school tennis, and runs the Parks and Recreation Summer Tennis Program.