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DEFENCE EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR
MIKE GREENLEY
CAE’S LEAD EXECUTIVE FOR CANADA
COMBINES AN ELON MUSK-LIKE
TECHNOLOGICAL BENT WITH A FIERCE
ENTREPRENEURIAL DRIVE
It’s that time of year again when we turn to identifying Canada’s top defence executive and, as usual, the field of
competition is a fertile one. Selection is never easy and once that process is complete the next thing to be achieved
is assembling a profile of the person behind the job title. With Mike Greenley, Vice President and General Manager
of CAE Canada, that process was both simple – in that he is open, frank and engaging – and difficult, because
like most driven successful senior executives, he is complex and multi-faceted. CDR’s European Correspondent,
Tim Mahon, recently had the opportunity to sit down in London, England with the winner of CDR’s Defence
Executive of the Year award for 2016. Here is our profile on this veteran of Canada’s defence industry.
A Canadian Forces’ CH-147 Chinook image generated using CAE’s Medallion software

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M
ike Greenley is a dyed in the wool
defence and aerospace animal.
“Defence and aerospace are all I
know,” he says modestly though
he goes on over the next few hours to prove
he knows much more – from science and
technology through history and international
affairs. His introduction to the domain came
more or less, by accident, in his words. When
studying at the University of Waterloo he had
an engagement at the then Defence & Civil
Institute of Environmental Medicine (DCIEM) –
later Defence Research & Development Canada
(DRDC) to study simulation-based training.
“I started studying simulation transfer of
training, to measure whether virtual simulation
could replicate live vehicle human performance
response and learning, and then later studying
simulator sickness and how to design training
environments to avoid it”, he says. He must
look back on that as a great example of
serendipity at work as he acknowledges the
importance that background has brought to
his recent and current career path.
After graduation he joined a small defence
consultancy analysing user requirements for
weapon systems and conducting field trials
of soldier systems with frontline troops. His
activities at the time encompassed a broad
range of disciplines from artillery fire control
through command and control to maritime
navigation systems – a variety that serves him
well today in terms of having good knowledge
of the underlying requirements his customers
have. As if that was not absorbing enough,
though, he also took a part time Master’s
degree in psychomotor behaviour, focusing
on learning and memory.
LAUNCHING
GREENLEY & ASSOCIATES
An event common in the life stories of many
senior executives then occurred – the urge
for control of his own destiny took over and
in 1996 he formed Greenley & Associates,
focusing on providing design support for
defence systems and – interestingly – nuclear
power plant control room systems. He was
instrumental in the creation of Statements of
Operational Requirements (SORs) for a wide
range of defence systems and integrated
support contracts, increasingly using simulation
in design and design evaluation of system
requirements.
Such was the success of Greenley & Associ-
ates that in 2004 he sold the firm to CAE. He
describes this phase of his career as “learning
how to own and lead a business and deliver
flawlessly to customers.” Which he evidently
did and was recognised for, with awards in
2002, 2003 and 2004 for leadership of one of
Canada’s 100 fastest growing companies and
an award from the city of Ottawa in 2005 as a
“Top 40 under 40” business leader.
As a vice president at CAE from 2004-2008,
Greenley continued to focus on modelling
and simulation and was the driving force
behind the creation of Presagis, which he
describes as “the world’s largest commercial
off the shelf-based software company for
simulation software products.” Achieved
through the acquisition and integration of
three firms (Engenuity Technologies, TERREX
and MultiGen-Paradigm) in 2007 – with the
‘integration’ part of the process an important
springboard from which some of his later
successes would spring – Presagis was to
be “the Microsoft Office of modelling and
Greenley in a flight suit with a Hawk trainer
Greenley suited up for a flight in a Hawk Jet
Trainer

3. 27WWW.CANADIANDEFENCEREVIEW.COM
simulation, providing an integrated suite of
tools,” in Greenley’s words. A vision that
subsequent history has proven the accuracy
of, it would seem.
Greenley left CAE in 2008, attracted by
“an offer it would have been very difficult to
refuse,” he admits and spent the following
five years with General Dynamics, first as vice
president of strategy and development for GD
in Canada then stepping into a global role as
VP International for what was then GD C4
Systems and has subsequently become GD
Mission Systems, developing military com-
munications and mission systems solutions
worldwide.
LEADING CAE
IN CANADA
So rich a background of experience in business
practices and multiculturalism made Greenley
the ideal candidate for a leadership role when
CAE extended its regional structure to include
Canada in 2013, at which time he took up
his current appointment as VP and General
Manager for CAE Canada. He now leads an
enterprise with some 700 employees spread
across ten sites and is quick to point out the
unique nature of the Canadian enterprise, as
distinct from CAE’s US, European and Asia-
Pacific regions.
“We do a lot of things in Canada that aren’t
done elsewhere in the company, simply as a
result of past acquisitions of capability and
relationships. For example, we have supported
mission systems equipment for Canada’s F/A-18
aircraft for over twenty five years, we have been
responsible for electronic warfare suites for the
army for over 30 years and are integrating the
information environment for in service support
of the new Cyclone maritime helicopter,” he
says. As an additional example, he later reveals
that CAE is a leading manufacturer of magnetic
anomaly detectors (MAD), used by maritime
patrol aircraft to detect and localise submerged
submarines from the air.
Although these various activities, which
we hesitate to characterise as ‘peripheral’ but
which nonetheless sit slightly outside the core
business, Greenley’s focus is firmly in line with
the corporation’s overall ambition to be the
‘training systems partner of choice’ for military
and civil customers around the globe. “Our
primary markets are defence and security, civil
aviation and healthcare,” he says, going on
to add that being in Canada and close to the
group’s headquarters (Montreal) functions,
“we get to do a lot of things first – from a
technology insertion perspective and a service
provision one too.”
NOT JUST
SIMULATION BUT FULL
TRAINING SOLUTIONS
One of the repeating characteristics of Green-
ley’s career has been the institution of major
acquisition and integration projects under his
leadership, and his latest appointment is no
exception. In 2015 CAE acquired the NATO
Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) business from
Bombardier for $19.8M. Using an analogy with
IBM – who famously changed their business
culture from being a seller of personal com-
puters to being a provider of integrated infor-
mation technology services – Greenley points
to the NFTC acquisition as a shining example
of the ambition “to extend the CAE offering
into full training systems, including live military
flight training.”
Less than three months after the acquisition
of over 200 employees, Greenley was able to
say with confidence “… it’s worked brilliantly.
All the departments and fiefdoms within the
company have pulled together and, combined
with the binding activity of the management
team, has engaged in what we call ‘boundary-
less behaviour’ to the benefit of the customer
and the whole enterprise. It has been a peerless
example of the people, the culture and the
strategy working together.”
And the ambition does not stop here.
Breaking news as CDR went to press has
revealed that CAE is teaming with Draken
International to mount a bid for the Contracted
Airborne Training Services(CATS) requirement
for Canada’s Department of Defence. Provid-
ing ‘aggressor training’ for combat aircrews,
using experienced pilots flying agile combat
aircraft, CATS is a logical extension of CAE’s
capabilities at the high end of the airborne
training spectrum.
CAE’s CH-147 Gunnery trainer at Garrison Petawawa

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LEVERAGING NFTC
EXPERIENCE
FOR CATS PROGRAM
“The NFTC acquisition has fleshed out our
capabilities as a major training systems inte-
grator and brought us an additional fifteen
years’ worth of experience in maintenance
and operations of a fleet of high performance
aircraft. The CATS opportunity will enable us
to leverage this and provide an independent,
effectively managed and essential resource for
fighter pilot training for today and tomorrow,”
Greenley says.
If the joint bid is successful, aircraft from
Draken’s fleet of A-4 Skyhawks – the company
acquired the entire A-4 capability of the Royal
New Zealand Air Force, including airframes,
spares, maintenance and logistics support – will
become an independent, Canadian registered
fleet operated by a joint venture, CAE Opera-
tional Live Training Services. The evaluation
of proposals, according to Greenley, will give
preference to solutions that offer a common
airframe rather than a selection of different air-
craft, presumably on the basis that the logistics
burden and footprint will be greatly reduced
and simplified over the lifetime of the contract.
“Draken shares our view on the need for
realism and commonality for this kind of en-
gagement and we firmly believe with this bid
we are offering the highest degree of aggressor
capability we can deliver,” says Greenley.
GROUND ZERO
FOR LVC TRAINING
Just as important, though, is the thinking that
has gone in to how CATS can itself act as a
springboard to the next level of capability –
beyond what is currently being called for by the
request for proposals. “Assuming we become
the incumbent, Canada will then become
Ground Zero for us in the development of
combining a live, virtual and constructive (LVC)
training capability for the aggressor market,”
he says, adding that in developing simulation-
based stimulation of training content to bring
additional realism and flexibility to the offering,
“Canada will be the breeding ground from
which we can export this capability to the rest
of the world – something CAE has proven it
can be successful doing.”
Between 2016 and 2021, on current plans,
Canada’s defence forces will require modern,
integrated and cost-effective training solu-
tions for new and existing platforms. The next
generation fighter continues to be the subject
of political debate, but if Canada confirms
its intention - notwithstanding Prime Minis-
ter Trudeau’s comments to the contrary - to
procure the F-35 Lightning II fifth generation
combat aircraft, the fact that CAE signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with
Lockheed Martin to be that company’s train-
ing partner of choice for Canada, places the
CAE in pole position to provide just such a
solution.
TRAINING
SOLUTIONS FOR THE
NAVY AND ARMY
In the maritime field, once a decision is made
on the Canadian Surface Combatant pro-
gramme – which could see up to fifteen 90
metre combat vessels procured over time – CAE
has a well considered approach to develop-
ing an effective training solution for the Royal
Canadian Navy.
In the land domain, the Land Vehicle Crew
Training System will likely mandate common
training systems and infrastructures at five
sites across Canada for the army’s armoured
and tactical vehicles, including the Leopard II
and Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) fleets. Crew
training in an integrated environment, leverag-
ing every pillar of the LVC approach to training,
is one of the things in which CAE excels, and
Greenley is confident there is a compelling bid
to be mounted for LVCTS.
TARGETING
FUTURE PILOT TRAINING
Back in the airborne training sector, there is a
requirement for operational weapons systems
trainers for three aircraft fleets, likely to be
scheduled around 2019 on current plans, and
a further requirement for training fixed wing
search and rescue aircraft crews that has just
been bid in 2016. And of course the elephant
in the room is Canada’s Future Pilot Training
System (FPTS), which may seek to integrate
multiple current flying training contracts into
one integrated, omnibus solution that will set
the scene for ab-initio pilot training across
the Canadian forces for perhaps two or three
decades.
“We’re not going to be short of opportuni-
ties to shine,” says Greenley with a wry smile,
CAE took over responsibility for NFTC training from Bombardier in 2015
NFTC ground school operated by CAE

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“but more importantly we have a breadth
of capabilities and the ability to be agile and
flexible in responding to the customer’s require-
ments that I believe places us in a very strong
position to forecast significant growth in the
short- and medium-term future.” A busy five
years ahead indeed!
SERVING AS
CADSI CHAIRMAN
Canadian to the core, Greenley’s activities
outside the office also showcase his strong
desire to see excellence at work in every aspect
of Canadian activity. Persistently active in his
local community, he has also dedicated effort
and time to engagements at the national level.
At the time of this writing he is just finishing six
years’ service on the Board of Directors of the
Canadian Association of Defence and Security
Industries (CADSI), for the last four of which
he has been the board’s chairman.
His voice – while working for General Dy-
namics and CAE both – has been a prominent
and articulate one that has helped to drive the
creation of the Defence Procurement Strategy
now being rolled out in every aspect of defence
acquisition and procurement management. In
2012 he was also recognised for service to his
country and peers when he was the proud
recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond
Jubilee Medal.
Which brings us to the infamous ‘slippers’
question. When the time comes to hang up the
executive suit and warm his feet at the home
hearth, what will Greenley look back on with
the greatest sense of pride and satisfaction?
Like most others asked the question in the last
five years, the prospect of retiring from what
has evidently been a fulfilling, stimulating and
rewarding life to date does not necessarily
fill him with unbounded enthusiasm and the
first reaction is to say “it’s a long way off
yet.” Which it is – but nonetheless the answer
provides an illuminating insight into the man
behind the public image.
REVELLING IN
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
“I guess if I am looking at it from today’s
viewpoint the thing that gives me the greatest
sense of communal achievement would be the
NFTC integration,” he says. “The customer
really appreciated it – not only the seamless
integration itself, but the way in which it
was done. From a personal perspective I think
the way we engaged with the employees – and
the fantastic way in which they responded
– was a great thing to do. Fulfilling, too,”
he grins.
He has also served as Chairman of the
Board of Governors for the Elmwood school
for Girls in Ottawa and is an avid downhill
skier. A strong family man, Greenley is the
proud father of two young ladies, the oldest
at university and the youngest on the cusp of
the same adventure. Watching him talk about
their successes and the regular “father and
daughter” trips they get to organise with his
active participation, the fundamental qualities
of understanding, empathy and the will to be
a part of other people’s personal development
– qualities that are a core part of his industrial
leadership – shine through. Which is one of
the multiple reasons why CDR has seen fit to
honour Mike Greenley as its Defence Executive
of the Year for 2016.
But, let’s leave Greenley the last word, in a
pithy sentence that encapsulates much of the
philosophy he has expressed during our inter-
view with him. Indeed, it’s something he has
evidently employed throughout his career and
in speaking of the NFTC integration and the
reaction of the former Bombardier employees
from the very first day, pointing out the ‘family’
aspect of the management team’s approach
to the rapid progress post acquisition, he told
us with obvious satisfaction, “There was no
resistance to the integration process. None.
We turned to each other and simply said…..
they’re home.”
Tim Mahon is CDR’s European
Correspondent
Greenley with Gene Colabattisto, CAE’s Group President, at 419 Tactical Fighter Training
Squadron in Cold Lake
Canada-based CAE is a world leader in its field of training and simulation