SHPE Honors Rob Anchondo with Corporate Achievement Award

Growing up in rural Arizona, Rob Anchondo had a high school teacher who suggested an engineering degree might be beyond the grasp of a Hispanic kid from a small town.

But Anchondo’s parents were adamant the only limitations were those he put on himself. “I set on a path to prove that person wrong and my parents right,” he recalled.

Anchondo brought that determination and focus to his distinguished 29-year career with Honeywell, where he recently was named Director of Integrated Avionics. He previously had led the Electronic Solutions-Space Engineering team since 2017.

Now his accomplishments have earned him the Corporate Achievement Award from the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). He will be among 23 professional SHPE Technical Achievement Recognition (STAR) award winners honored at the Excellence in STEM Luncheon and the STAR Awards Gala at the SHPE National Convention being held in Phoenix Oct. 30-Nov. 4.

In his current role Rob is serving as the Engineering Director of Integrated Avionics Systems, leading the systems engineering efforts around Honeywell avionics platforms and offerings.

In the Space business, Anchondo was responsible for over 500 engineers at seven sites in Arizona, Florida, Puerto Rico, Canada and the United Kingdom, and accountable for space-rated product lines worth $700 million in annual revenue. They span mechanical systems, electrical onboard and single-board computers, software solutions and payload RF products.

Technical expertise and leadership are only part of Anchondo’s career success story, though. Just as important is the commitment he shares with Honeywell to promote workforce diversity.

“In college I had a counselor who took an interest in me, even helping me find a grant in my senior year when I was out of money,” Anchondo noted. “At graduation, I told him he had been my beacon of hope. He said my job now was to help someone else. I’ve taken that to heart and pay it forward where I can.”

That’s one reason he said yes when asked to resurrect Honeywell’s SHPE involvement a few years ago, serving as Executive Sponsor for two years and creating a team to engage at the national level.

It’s why he steps up as a role model promoting SHPE opportunities, speaking at SHPE professional and university chapters and the national conference. He supports a variety of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) events at the elementary, high school and junior college levels, too.

Anchondo’s career has encompassed several engineering roles, including a team leader project on Control Moment Gyros in 1999 that resulted in a Honeywell Technical Achievement Award. He is a three-time recipient of Honeywell’s Outstanding Engineer Award.

In 2006 he moved into executive leadership, becoming Engineering Site Leader and Director for Mechanical Systems in the Space, Missiles and Marine segments.

But it was stepping outside the comfort zone of his domain knowledge that Anchondo calls one of his proudest accomplishments. In 2014, he was asked to design and implement the engineering organization that anchors today’s Connected Aircraft enterprise.

He built the Aero Services infrastructure at sites around the globe and created a Mobile Apps Team and Data Analytics Team before returning to the Space business in 2017.

Among Anchondo’s strengths is positioning others for growth and watching them succeed, so it’s not surprising he considers advocating for the up and coming workforce one of the most satisfying parts of his job today.

“It’s very rewarding to watch fresh ideas come from new people we add,” he said. “I enjoy ensuring our workforce is as diverse as our population and seeing the value these diverse perspectives can bring to the process.”