4/26/2024 Julia Park
Written by Julia Park
William Profilet (BSME 1984) is one of this year’s recipients of the MechSE Distinguished Alumni Award, which recognizes alumni who have established careers and have served in a professional and technical capacity to honor the department and the university. To date, nearly 200 MechSE alumni have received this award.
“I am truly humbled to be the recipient of such a meaningful recognition,” said Profilet. “I received a world-class engineering curriculum at Illinois, brought to me in experiences, both in the classroom and in the laboratory. My strong engineering background was critical in my ability to succeed in operation of modern systems, on both the submarine and the mission equipment and propulsion plan, as well as becoming very well-versed in engineering capabilities that were critical for me to be able to best support our sales and development of systems for the U.S. military.”
Profilet’s career has spanned from serving as a Nuclear Trained Submarine Officer in the United States Navy, to being a Senior Director of Business Development at Boeing Defense Space and Security (BDS) to retiring as a Legacy Fellow in Business Development at BAE Systems Electronic Systems.
He was personally responsible for numerous sales of major aircraft systems for Boeing, as well as large-scale smaller weapons and avionics sales. He acted not only as the Boeing Sales Director for BAE Systems, but also was a trusted advisor to both Boeing and BAE Leadership while working through challenging programs between the two companies.
During his 27 years at McDonnell Douglas/Boeing, in both engineering and business development roles, Profilet had key responsibilities in the integration of new weapons on Boeing Fighter aircraft, as well as being a submarine weapons integration leader for the company. He spent more than 20 years in business development, culminating with roles as Boeing’s Vice President in Canberra, Australia; Senior Director of Business Development for the F/A-18 Super Hornet program; and as Senior Business Development Director in charge of Global Strike sales for all fighters and weapons.
Most recently, Profilet spent seven years at BAE Systems as Business Development Senior Director. He retired in March 2023 after being named as the first Business Development Legacy Fellow in the United States for BAE Systems. He is also retired from the United States Naval Reserve.
He is currently Principal at Pro Defense Consulting, LLC, in St. Louis, Missouri, consulting in the areas of international business development, domestic business development, and business development functional excellence.
Profilet has served on many different boards, including the Boeing Australia Holdings Board; Insitu Pacific Board; Missouri District Export Council (president); Washington University Eliot Fellows and Olin Business School development boards; and currently serves as president of the USO of Kansas and Missouri Board. In addition to his MechSE degree, he earned his MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and certificates from the Naval War College (National Security Decision Making) and Villanova University (Program Management).
“I had a sense of giving back instilled in me and I try to exercise that every day. My family and I established a scholarship quite a few years ago in the name of my late sister, Julie Frichtl. When you get to a point in your life where you can give back, this is a great way to extend the legacy by providing scholarships for young men and women who get to go to this great school in this great department.”
Profilet is married to Janet, a retired school principal. He was honored at the MechSE Spring Awards Banquet April 19, where he shared words of wisdom with the students present.
“In MechSE, I learned how to think creatively, which gave me a strong basis in business development. As you’re going through your career here, you’ll have opportunities for out of the box thinking,” he said. “When you have ambiguity and risk, the ability to learn and think through that is something I picked up here at Illinois and it really served me well. I encourage you to take those opportunities to learn how to think about how to deal with risk and ambiguity and come up with creative alternative solutions.”