Rick Stephens
2004 AISES Executive Excellence Award
Rick Stephens, Pala Band of Mission Indians, is senior vice president of the Boeing Company and the president of one of the largest divisions of Boeing, the Shared Services Group. Rick has served as the Tribal Chairman of the Pala Indians in California. Rick and his wife Peggy have four children.
As president of Shared Services, Rick leads a 21 thousand-person, $8 billion business unit that provides common, cost-effective services across the enterprise. As Tribal Chairman of the Pala Band of Mission Indians Stephens promoted the health and well-being of the community and strived to maintain culture. During his terms as Tribal Chairman, he lead the council that was responsible for managing the various businesses of the Band, helped build the agriculture business and other ventures such as real estate, and economic development.
The first of his family to graduate from college and to earn a graduate degree, Stephens attended University of Southern California on a Naval ROTC scholarship and became a Marine aviator. Stephens received a BS in mathematics in 1974 from the USC and an MS in computer science in 1984 from California State University, Fullerton. Throughout his career Rick has received many honors and is blazing a trail for American Indians. He has spent considerable time and energy promoting educational initiatives, policy and programs that impact young people across the country. Rick has and will continue to serve as a role model and will continue to make a difference in developing our youth to become strong members of the global economy.
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