HARLINGEN — Tory Bruno found a box of old dynamite in his grandmother’s barn one day.
He was about 12 or 13 years old when he made the finding — and built his first homemade “rocket.”
Rockets have always fascinated Salvatore T. “Tory” Bruno, the new president and CEO of United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and the Boeing Co.
Bruno grew up in a ranch in California — in the sierras.
“I was kicking around in the back of the barn, you know, and I found this box with probably 80-year-old dynamite and blasting caps. I’m a dumb kid. I didn’t even know why it was all wet,” he recalled. Later, he learned, “because it was sweating the nitroglycerin out!”
“I took my penknife and I opened up these sticks of dynamite and I pulled the powder and the cloth down and I used them as my propellant to my homemade rocket and not only did my rocket fly, but I am still here and I have all 10 fingers!” he said, still in awe of the experience.
“So I’ve been interested in rockets ever since then,” he said. “What is cooler than a rocket?”
“Do not do this at home kids,” he urges.
Bruno grew up in Amador County. His grandmother raised him.
“She was an amazing woman. You’ve got to sort of picture her — about five foot inch and a quarter and you never cheated her out of that quarter inch. You’d ask her ‘how tall are you’ and she’d say five foot one and a quarter. She was an independent rancher and post master and county planning commissioner, president of the Amador County Business and Professional Women’s Association, just a really amazing woman — and tough as nails.”
“She was really something,” he proudly said.
He smiles recalling the time when she found out that he, at about 15 years old, had lied about his age to get a logging job. “I got the highest paid job on the logging crew as a kid because nobody else wanted it,” he recounted. “I thought I was pretty cool. I was a lumberjack and earning all this money and I was doing this tough job. I was there three or four days, but we lived in a small community. There were no secrets.
“Somebody ratted me out to my grandmother,” he recalled. “My grandmother showed up at the job site, dragged me off by my ear in front of all the real lumberjacks. It was very embarrassing.”
His paternal grandfather was born in Sicily, immigrating to the United States in the 1930s. He joined the Navy, fought in World War II and settled in Monterey, California. His maternal great-grandmother immigrated from Germany.
Bruno attended grade school in Pioneer, California, with a population of 80, “not counting dogs and livestock.”
He attended Amador County High School in Sutter Creek: “The biggest senior class in the county’s history at 65 students.”
Subsequently, he had a 75-mile commute, each way, attending San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton.
He put himself through California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He has completed graduate courses and management programs at Harvard University, Santa Clara University, the Wye River Institute, San Jose State University and the Defense Acquisition University.
The rocket maker has had many jobs: ranch hand, lumberjack, warehouseman for a beer distributor, commercial fisherman, handyman, painter, dishwasher, teacher’s assistant, math and physics tutor in college, planetarium lecturer, and physics lecturer.
Prior to joining ULA, he served as the vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Strategic and Missile Defense Systems. Bruno joined Lockheed Martin in 1984. He previously served as vice president and general manager of FBM and ICBM, as vice president of the THAAD Missile, as vice president of engineering, as chief engineer for Strategic Missile Programs, as program manager for FBM Rocket Propulsion and in engineering positions involving design and analysis for control systems of rockets and hypersonic reentry vehicles. He holds several patents.
Bruno is a companion of the Naval Order of the United States, a member of the Navy League and a former member of the board of directors of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. He served on the National Blue Ribbon Panel for Bettering Engineering & Science Education and as chairman of the Diversity Council of Lockheed Martin Space Systems. He is a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem.
Bruno lives in the countryside outside Denver, Colorado. He is married to his college sweetheart Rebecca, also an engineer, and has two children, Arthur, 22, and Brianna, 20. Both are in college, studying engineering.
Bruno, 52, also is the author of two books titled “Templar Organization: The Management of Warrior Monasticism” and “Templar Incorporated,” two works that explore the organization of the medieval Knights Templar from the perspective of modern business management. A third and final book is planned.
“I’m a history buff and I ran across the Crusades. It was just such fun. It was filled with drama; people with intense ideas and people who are just in the highest of ideals and other people who had the lowest of motivations; just a fascinating period of history,” he said.
“The Templars fascinated me because they were a medieval organization 900 years ago that developed a very sophisticated business model way ahead of their time and were very successful for almost 200 years and then the environment changed around them and they just simply couldn’t grasp it. They would not adapt after 185 years of just being on top, number one. Within five years they were gone,” he related.
This has impacted his management style: “I’ve always felt that the business lesson there was that no matter how good you are at what you do, you need to keep your eye on what the environment is all about, what your customers really need, and you don’t serve the organization, you serve the customer. As long as you are willing to adapt and do the things that you can do, you get another 200 years.”
David Pike/Valley Morning Star
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