When UCF alum Evren Tasci ’18 earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, he had it made. He had landed a job as design engineer for Lockheed Martin, drawing upon the valuable experience he’d gained from working for Professor Ali Gordon’s Mechanics of Materials Research Group.
“I owe a lot to Dr. Gordon, not just for the opportunity to conduct research for him but also for the knowledge he instilled in me in his Machine Design 1 and Machine Design 2 classes,” he says. “My first job at Lockheed was in a design organization where I had to design complex assemblies and systems for the fleet ballistic missile program. Without his lessons on machine design and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, there is no way I would have been as successful as I have been in my career.”
With such a fulfilling role at Lockheed, life was good for Tasci. He was comfortable. Going back to school for an advanced degree was far from his mind.
Three years into his career at Lockheed however, he wondered if he had become a little too comfortable. He was supporting the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Ballistic Missile Program (FBM), an initiative that started in the 1960s, so the colleagues who had become his mentors were poised to retire. Tasci realized there would come a time when he would need to step up into a senior leadership role and become a mentor, just as his colleagues had been for him.
“Much of my early career growth and excellence I attributed to them, absorbing as much knowledge as possible,” he says. “I wanted to do the same but for the next generation and believe I possessed the innate framework to become an effective manager, but more importantly a leader. I believed getting my master’s in engineering management would position me well to achieve higher status in the company and allow me to positively impact more personnel.”
Considering a school other than UCF was out of the question.
“I had such a good experience in my undergraduate program and was so proud of going to that university that it was a no brainer — if I was going to do a master’s, it would be UCF also,” he says. “I also was on campus the year we went undefeated as a football program, which was electric as well.”
UCF’s master’s in engineering management program is tailor-made to prepare students like Tasci to manage the systems, processes and people behind engineering projects, with a focus on effective decision-making and delivering innovative solutions.
With his forthcoming master’s degree, Tasci is ready to put his new knowledge to use in his current role as a systems integration and test associate manager at Lockheed. He now leads a team of 27 professionals, including mechanical test engineers, missile mechanics, test fluids mechanics and machinists. Together, they support Lockheed’s Mechanical Evaluation Support Area, or MESSA, team at the Space Force Station at Cape Canaveral, testing and fabricating some of the U.S. Navy’s ground support for the FBM program.
“Anything that touches a Trident II D5 missile on either coast by both the Navy and its contractors comes through my team’s hands first to test and validate prior to being issued out,” he says. “Not only do we test production hardware, we also perform all proofings and evaluations of new hardware, designs, systems and concepts before these changes are incorporated, produced and issued out to the fleet.”
With his new master’s degree, Tasci is confident that he has what it takes to step into more leadership roles, eager to serve as a guide and coach to early career professionals.
“The next few years will be very dynamic and exciting out here on the cape as we prepare for test flights of our new missile in the next few years, something that has not been done since the 1980s,” he says. “As we enter into this new period of the program I hope to continue to be looked at as a subject matter expert and trusted leader within the company by both my peers, employees and our Navy counterparts.”
Written by Bel Huston | Dec. 11, 2025