Neal J. Keating has served as a senior executive with Rockwell Collins, Hughes Supply and GKN Aerospace. Most recently, he served as Chairman. President and Chief Executive Officer of Kaman Corporation, an aerospace company with an impressive history of aviation firsts. Keating lead combined businesses that enable global defense and commercial aerospace industries to meet mission-critical challenges. Over his 13 years of senior leadership, Keating significantly restructuring Kaman’s portfolio of engineered products serving aerospace and defense and the industrial and medical markets. During his tenure as Kaman’s CEO, annual revenue more than doubled.
Prior to joining Kaman in 2007, he was Chief Operating Officer at Hughes Supply, a $5.4 billion industrial distributor and Chief Executive Officer for GKH Aerospace, a $1 billion aerospace subsidiary of GKN Plc. He served in increasingly senior positions at Rockwell International from 1978 to 2002, ultimately serving as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Rockwell Collins, Commercial Systems. In 2020, he retired from Kaman Corp., but continues to serve as executive chair through 2021 and plans to retire from the board of directors after the Kaman annual shareholders meeting in 2021.
He also serves on the boards of Hubbell, Inc. and Avon Old Farms School in Connecticut. He has served as chairman of the MAPI board of trustees is on the Board of Governors of the Aerospace Industry Association.
Keating earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois and his MBA from the University of Chicago.