Executive Mosaic is honored to announce Ray O. Johnson, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Lockheed Martin, as the newest inductee into the Wash 100, the premier group of leaders who drive innovation and growth at the intersection of the public and private sectors.

As CTO, Johnson has strategic leadership in the areas of technology, engineering, production operations, program management and supply chain operations in addition to running the company’s advanced technology laboratory and its center for innovation.

A mixture of executive, academic and tech guru, Johnson leads the technology vision for 72,000 people working on more than 4,000 projects critical to U.S. defense and security at Lockheed.

In an interview with GovCon Exec upon his induction into the Washington 100, Johnson said the global challenges of resource scarcity, cybersecurity and economic uncertainty have created a world of unprecedented instability.

He went on to talk about ways in which Lockheed is working to change the global threat environment and remedy current trends.

“A little over six years ago, we wanted to develop a focusing mechanism for our technology investments,” he said.

“For about six months, we looked at broad, global macro trends in both technology and social science to see where we thought the world was going. From that work, we developed 15 Strategic Technology Threads, ranging from clean energy and advanced materials to robotics and big data technologies,” Johnson added.

Johnson said the company’s nanotechnology, energy and climate initiatives flourished as a result of the project.

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Johnson is a big proponent of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and says the ‘Apollo’ generation of scientists are retiring and those roles must be filled by qualified individuals.

“To remain competitive, the United States needs to recognize that we are seeing a gap in the number of young people entering STEM fields. We want to inspire students to pursue these disciplines, which we know are critical not only to our national security, but also to our economic strength and our global competitiveness,’ he told ExecutiveBiz last summer.

Lockheed gave $10 million to STEM education causes in 2013.

That includes the USA Science & Engineering Festival, which Lockheed co-founded in 2010 and is expected to have 350,000 attendees this year.

In addition to his executive role at the Bethesda, Md-based company, Johnson serves on a number of boards for industry and technology associations including the Northern Virginia Technology Council and the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology.

Johnson holds a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and has been involved in a number of technology studies for the U.S. Air Force.