The power of allyship – inside our employee resource group for the Indigenous community

She had welcomed six elders from the Meskwaki Nation to the Collins Aerospace site in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As part of her opening remarks, she acknowledged that the site stands on ancestral Indigenous land.

When she finished speaking, she recalls, the elders looked at her and said, “thank you.”

“That was very powerful for me,” said McNamara-Ankney, who does not have Indigenous heritage. “It’s using my power to do something. I don’t take that lightly. It’s important I keep giving a voice to people who are underrepresented.”

Today, as the global chair of RTX’s employee resource group for Indigenous people and allies, she uses her perspective to advance the group's major initiatives. They include:

Dedicated to the past – and the future

As a physical, permanent form of the land acknowledgement McNamara-Ankney made in her spoken remarks, RTX RAIN has also secured land acknowledgement plaques, including one at a Pratt & Whitney site in Lethbridge, Canada and the Raytheon Diné facility in Farmington, New Mexico.

In November 2024, an additional plaque dedication is planned at a new Pratt & Whitney site in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Future dedications are also in development – particularly at sites where there is a large Indigenous population within the RTX workforce or the local community.

“It’s been very powerful,” said Sarah Lincoln, RTX RAIN’s previous global chair, who is now the group’s operations chair. “It makes us as a community feel very seen. It really allows us to elevate Indigenous voices in the company, and it honors and pays respect to the lands and the people who came before us in the areas where we all work on a daily basis.”

In the year since the land acknowledgements began, Thomas Reed, global co-chair of RTX RAIN, said the dedications have helped raise awareness for the ERG at those sites. Membership across the ERG rose 17 percent in the past year, with a large part of that as allies, said Lincoln.

“The excitement is palpable,” said Reed, a principal electrical engineer at Raytheon, an RTX business. “These locations become a home for Indigenous people at work, and that is a draw for new employees and a highly valuable benefit for existing employees.”

Recruitment is another priority for the group. RTX has a longtime corporate sponsorship of the American Indian Science & Engineering Society, and RTX RAIN members attend the organization’s events to connect with prospective employees and promote STEM education and careers with Indigenous youth.

“The people we hire from the conference love working at our company,” said Reed. “That speaks to the quality of people coming to the company and our culture of inclusivity for Indigenous people.”

The power of a personal brand

One way RTX RAIN supports employee retention is through its “personal branding” learning and development program, where participants learn to advocate for their own career advancement. Now in its fourth year, the 12-week course is open to all employees and received 300 applications for 30 available spaces – from employees across various ERGs – in its 2024 cohort.

The course was tailored by RTX RAIN and has a track record of tangible results – including promotions – for many who have participated.

“We’ve been able to impact a lot of people personally and professionally,” said Lincoln, who completed the course in 2022, and is an associate director of talent management at Collins Aerospace, an RTX business.

A strong base of allies

Recalling that day at the Cedar Rapids site, McNamara-Ankney marvels at how her seemingly minor gesture meant so much to the Meskwaki Nation elders.

“For something so small, it made me feel very tall,” said McNamara-Ankney, a business systems manager at Collins Aerospace. “Allies expand the voice of the ERG. So let it be me.”