Influential Women Profiles: Donna K. Alexander, Deputy Task Order Manager at Leidos Engineering & Sciences, LLC
Donna K. Alexander is a seasoned civil engineer and engineering leader whose distinguished career has spanned nearly four decades across federal service and private industry. Known for her technical expertise, leadership capabilities, infrastructure management experience, and commitment to excellence, Donna has built a career overseeing critical engineering projects that support public safety, transportation systems, aviation infrastructure, and environmentally responsible development throughout the United States.
A graduate of the Clemson University College of Engineering, Donna earned her Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering in 1987, laying the foundation for a lifelong career dedicated to engineering innovation, public service, and infrastructure leadership. She later strengthened her leadership and business expertise by earning an MBA, further expanding her ability to manage multidisciplinary teams, large-scale programs, and complex organizational operations.
Donna began her engineering career with the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta, Georgia, where she served as a resident engineer and project manager overseeing the construction and inspection of critical aviation infrastructure projects throughout the Southeastern United States. Her responsibilities included managing projects involving control towers, navigational systems, and air traffic control facilities — highly specialized environments requiring technical precision, regulatory compliance, and detailed coordination across engineering disciplines.
Those early years with the FAA provided Donna with extensive experience navigating complex federal systems while developing the leadership, organizational, and technical skills that would continue shaping her career for decades to come.
After relocating to South Carolina, Donna dedicated 25 years to the United States Forest Service, where she led and executed a broad range of engineering projects across National Forests and public lands. Her work involved the design, oversight, and management of bridges, recreational facilities, administrative buildings, and marine infrastructure projects.
Among her most notable accomplishments was a floating dock project in Charleston, South Carolina, which remains one of the projects she considers especially meaningful within her career portfolio. She also contributed to the development of the first LEED-certified building within the Forest Service Southern Region, demonstrating her commitment to environmentally responsible engineering and sustainable infrastructure design.
Throughout her tenure with the Forest Service, Donna became known for consistently delivering projects under budget and on schedule while balancing cost-effectiveness, functionality, environmental responsibility, and long-term infrastructure performance. Her ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and oversee large-scale initiatives ultimately led to her advancement into engineering management roles overseeing engineering operations and strategic project execution.
Donna later returned to the Federal Aviation Administration, continuing to expand her leadership responsibilities through positions including District Engineer, Manager of Infrastructure, and Terminal Design Manager. In those roles, she led engineering teams responsible for critical control tower systems and complex aviation infrastructure projects supporting national airspace operations.
Today, Donna serves as Deputy Task Order Manager at Leidos Engineering & Sciences, LLC, where she oversees engineering teams supporting FAA task orders nationwide. In her current leadership role, Donna manages budgets, schedules, staffing coordination, and overall project execution to ensure engineering programs are delivered successfully within scope, schedule, and compliance requirements.
A Licensed Professional Engineer, Donna has built her career on technical excellence, professionalism, accountability, and strong leadership. However, she attributes much of her personal and professional success first and foremost to her family.
Donna believes the unwavering support, encouragement, and belief her family provided throughout her career created the foundation that allowed her to pursue opportunities confidently while balancing leadership responsibilities and personal commitments. Whether advancing into management positions, returning to federal service, or stepping into leadership opportunities within private industry, she credits her family with giving her the confidence and support necessary to fully embrace each challenge.
She also believes the values instilled in her by her parents — particularly education, independence, self-sufficiency, integrity, and hard work — deeply shaped both her leadership philosophy and professional decision-making throughout her life.
One of the most important lessons Donna has learned throughout her career is the value of confidence, continuous learning, and relationship-building within engineering leadership. She believes women in technical environments must continually strengthen both their technical expertise and leadership abilities in order to confidently navigate challenges and make strong, informed decisions.
She also emphasizes the importance of cultivating meaningful relationships with mentors, colleagues, supervisors, and professional networks. Throughout her career, Donna has seen firsthand how mentorship, collaboration, and strong professional relationships can create opportunities, provide guidance, and support long-term professional growth.
Persistence has been another defining principle throughout her journey. Donna believes obstacles, setbacks, or biases should never discourage women from pursuing leadership positions within technical industries. Instead, she encourages professionals to continue learning, seek mentorship, ask questions, and grow through both successes and failures.
Donna is especially passionate about encouraging young women entering engineering and technical industries to focus on earning respect through hard work, consistency, competence, and professionalism. She openly acknowledges engineering remains a heavily male-dominated field where women may still encounter individuals who underestimate their abilities or question their technical credibility.
In her view, the strongest response is consistent performance and demonstrated capability. Donna believes credibility is earned over time through reliability, preparation, problem-solving ability, technical strength, and meaningful contributions to projects and teams.
She often shares similar guidance with her daughters, encouraging them to pursue independence, confidence, education, and resilience regardless of the career path they choose. Donna believes women who commit themselves to excellence and integrity not only earn respect individually, but also help create greater opportunities for future generations of women entering technical leadership roles.
Throughout her own career, Donna has observed many of the challenges women leaders continue facing within engineering management environments. One of the most significant challenges, she believes, involves establishing and maintaining technical credibility.
Women leaders, she notes, may sometimes find their expertise questioned more frequently or encounter assumptions that they occupy administrative or support roles rather than technical leadership positions. She also recognizes that biases and stereotypes can influence how leadership styles are interpreted. Behaviors perceived as confident and decisive in male leaders may sometimes be viewed differently when demonstrated by women, while collaborative leadership approaches may incorrectly be interpreted as lacking authority.
Donna also acknowledges that many engineering leadership environments remain heavily male-dominated, which can create feelings of isolation and limit access to informal professional networks where mentorship, visibility, and advancement opportunities are often shared.
Additionally, she believes women leaders sometimes face challenges related to recognition, visibility, team dynamics, and advancement opportunities, particularly when biases affect how authority and leadership are received within technical organizations.
Despite those challenges, Donna remains optimistic about the future of women in engineering and leadership. She believes continued visibility, mentorship, technical excellence, and perseverance are helping reshape the industry and create stronger opportunities for future generations.
At the center of everything Donna values most is family. She believes every professional accomplishment throughout her career has been grounded in her desire to support, encourage, and set a positive example for her family.
She also strongly values work ethic, responsibility, independence, and commitment. For Donna, being a working woman represents empowerment, confidence, stability, and the ability to contribute meaningfully to society while maintaining personal independence and professional fulfillment.
At the same time, she deeply respects that every woman’s path may look different. Donna believes raising children and managing a household are equally important responsibilities deserving recognition and respect. Throughout her own life, she chose to continue building her engineering career while raising her children, supported by strong family systems that allowed her to successfully balance both roles.
Ultimately, whether at home or in the workplace, Donna believes in striving to be the very best in whatever role a person chooses to pursue. Through decades of leadership in engineering, federal infrastructure management, and public service, Donna K. Alexander continues demonstrating the lasting value of integrity, perseverance, technical excellence, and purpose-driven leadership.
Learn More about Donna K. Alexander:
Through her Influential Women profile: https://influentialwomen.com/connect/Donna-Alexander
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