Page 112 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2017

up up and away
woman-owned
Reputation growing for imaging company at Stennis
Drone
sMtory by Susan Ruddiman photos courtesy of Mary Pagnutti
ary Pagnutti is a rarity in her field though she has never felt out of place. She has excelled in the area that today is described as STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. She is the majority
owner of Innovative Imaging & Research (I2R) located at Stennis Space Center.
“I have always liked math and science and naturally gravitated toward it. I just enjoy that,” Pagnutti said. “You don’t think about it, you just do what you like to do.”
She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering in the early 1980s from State University of New York at Stony Brook, N.Y.
“I was in a very large state school, and most of my classes were well over 100 students. In almost all of my classes, I was the only woman,” she said. While fellow students could skip classes, that was impossible for her to do as the lone woman.
“It’s a running joke that I’ve been surrounded by men all my life. I even have two sons,” she said. Her sons are ages 20 and 26.
After college, she went to work for Northrop Grumman on Long Island where, in the large facility, she had to walk a distance to the only women’s restroom, passing several men’s restrooms along the way. She recalled that inconvenience with a laugh. “I was never treated differently.
I had the mindset that I wasn’t different
from anyone else, and I was given opportunities,” she said.
After a large reduction in the workforce in 1998, Pagnutti used her contacts to get a job with Lockheed Martin at Stennis Space Center where the company had an imaging contract with NASA. She relocated from New York to Mandeville, La.
When the NASA contract ended, she and her business partner, Robert Ryan, formed I2R in 2007 to fill a niche that continues to grow. They serve clients all over the globe with remote sensing/image enhancement, custom instrumentation and prototype electronics and unmanned aerial vehicle imaging needs.
“We have established a reputation because of the quality of work we do,” Pagnutti said. “Owning your company is a little stressful at times, but it’s in your power to make it work well. It’s extremely rewarding.”
Innovative Imaging & Research (I2R) Building 1103, Suite 140C,
Stennis Space Center MS 39529 228.688.2452
www.i2rcorp.com
Radiometric Triangulation Mary Pagnutti
112 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • September 2017
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