Conversations with Turkey's Career Pioneers - Muharrem Dörtkaşlı

CONVERSATIONS WITH TURKEY'S CAREER PIONEERS - MUHARREM DÖRTKAŞLI

This week’s guest for our Career Pioneers talk was TAI-TUSAŞ Executive Manager Mr. Muharrem Dörtkaşlı. Starting his talk by introducing himself, Mr. Dörtkaşlıstated that after graduating from METU Mechanical Engineering Department, he worked in the defense industry for many years.

Mentioning that it’s been 24 years since he started working at TUSAŞ, Mr. Dörtkaşlı said that with the motivation to build planes in Turkey, TUSAŞ was established under the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Technology in 1973 in order to reduce foreign dependency in the Turkish defense industry. In 1984, TAI-TUSAŞ was established in Ankara Kazan with Turkish and US joint capital. 

Although an agreement was made for 25 years, upon deciding that the foreign partnership would not work, the company was restructured in 2005 with 49% of TAI foreign shares being acquired by Turkish shareholders for 29 million dollars. TAI and TUSAŞ merged under the roof of TUSAŞ-Turkish Aerospace Industries, Inc. (TAI) and has become the center of technology with its following sub-groups: Aerostructures Group, Aircraft Group, Helicopter Group, UAS Group, and Space Systems Group.

Mr. Dörtkaşlı mentioned that following their success in developing and exporting all parts manufactured for the Turkish Armed Forces, with projects building up in the years 2007 and 2008, they hired almost 700 engineers with qualifications from good universities. TAI, in which 4500 people work today, gives importance to and provides continuing training within the academy it established as a result of the importance they give to the human factor. He also shared short films on HÜRKUŞ, ATAK helicopter and their unmanned aircraft ANKA. Mr. Dörtkaşlıended his talk by answering student questions.