海角社区

Martin Herrera was a Lockheed Martin Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Academy student, who was the first in his family to graduate from college in Fall 2019. He also had a full-time job offer from Lockheed Martin.

Working full-time, he started out with night classes at El Paso Community College before transferring to 海角社区 where he discovered a passion for Operations and Supply Chain Management. Herrera joined the Lockheed Martin ERP Academy to take full advantage of his time at 海角社区. As a high school student, Herrera did not see himself going to college, instead set out to work full-time to support his young family. Upon seeing his peers graduate from college and the opportunities a college education provided, Herrera began to contemplate a future that included a college education.

“I joined the Academy for two main reasons, to differentiate myself from my peers and to learn first-hand the ERP tools and software used by global leaders in OSCM,” Herrera said. “Today’s job market is extremely competitive, where just a degree is not enough to secure a good job upon graduation.”

Herrera participated in networking mixers with Lockheed Martin leadership and attended professional development workshops to polish his resume and prepare for interviews. However, Herrera found the most valuable component of the Academy to be the hands-on experience with SAP software.

“The exposure to SAP was the single most helpful component of the Academy for me,” Herrera said. “We’d run simulations that gave us an understanding of how companies use the software and the importance it plays,” Herrera notes that he saw classmates often struggle with anxiety and uncertainty as they neared the end of their college careers, with most expressing concern about landing a job or regret for not finding an internship or getting more involved while in the College.

“By the time my senior year came around, I had completed an internship with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and I had secured a full-time job with them before walking across the graduation stage,” Herrera said. “I’m in a great position to grow and succeed. I attribute this to the ERP Academy.”

This article originally appeared in the Woody L. Hunt College of Business 2020 Annual Report. To see the full report,

Editor’s Note:

Martin Herrera was accepted into the Lockheed Martin Operations Leadership Development Program (OLDP) and began his three-year rotation with Lockheed Martin Space in Colorado. The program provides continuous career development, preparing employees for leadership positions within the company.

Beginning in 2021, Herrera has been admitted to Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, where he will pursue his MBA while continuing work at Lockheed Martin.