The L.A. White Young Engineer Award recognizes early-career engineers who demonstrate exceptional leadership, innovation, and service to the profession and community. Jade Farr, P.Eng., is redefining what that service looks like—building her career on the belief that engineering is a team sport and that the strength of the community around an engineer shapes what she can accomplish. 

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Jade earned her Bachelor of Engineering, majoring in Electrical Engineering with a Certificate in Biomedical Engineering, from Dalhousie University in 2022, after a co-op term at Irving Shipbuilding working on safety and efficiency initiatives within the Ship Repair division, where she got her first hands-on look at the Halifax Class fleet she'd go on to support. The following year, she started her engineering career and joined Lockheed Martin Canada full-time as a Hardware Engineer Associate. She supports the sustainment and modernization of complex naval combat systems that contribute to Canada's maritime defence capabilities. Her work focuses on engineering change management and obsolescence solutions, helping ensure critical systems remain functional and reliable as technologies evolve. In a role that demands technical expertise and coordination across multiple stakeholders, she has led support activities for obsolescence investigations, managed engineering work packages, and contributed to engineering review processes involving both internal and external partners. 

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In 2025, Jade was promoted to Hardware Engineer, and today she continues to support the Halifax Class Combat System Integrator In-Service Support program on the Systems Engineering team. Jade has also gained experience supporting the River-Class Destroyer program, working closely with the Facilities team as well as the Project Management team.  

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But Jade’s instinct for building things that outlast her isn’t limited to obsolescence notices. As a stretch assignment, she took on the role of Functional Excellence Plan Coordinator, working closely with the Product Engineering Department to help execute its strategic goals — an early sign of the systems-level thinking that would come to define her leadership. That instinct showed up again when she noticed a gap in how the company onboarded its newest employees. Rather than flag the problem, she rebuilt the New Graduate Development Program, and under her leadership it's now standardized across five national offices — reaching a cohort of more than 100 young professionals in their first engineering & technology jobs. 

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That same drive shows up outside of Lockheed Martin’s walls. As Chair of Engineers Nova Scotia’s Emerging Professionals Committee, Jade leads a ten-plus-person multidisciplinary team supporting more than 1,500+ Engineers-in-Training and early Professional Engineers across the province. Under her leadership, the committee established zone representatives and launched regional events for the first time, carrying its reach well beyond Halifax to engineers who hadn’t had the same access before. She has stayed connected to that same network through her membership with the Women in Infrastructure Network’s Halifax chapter and Women in Defence and Security — communities that, like her committee work, exist to make sure no engineer has to build their career alone. 

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Now pursuing her MBA at Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, as a Forte Fellow and Certificate in Social Impact candidate, Jade has carried that same instinct for building community into an entirely new environment. As Chair of the Smith MBA National Case Competition, she led the strategic planning and execution with over 100 attendees from top Canadian MBA programs.  

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Underneath it all is a thread that predates the titles: mentorship. Jade credits the mentors who invested in her early on with shaping the engineer she became and has spent her career since paying that forward. As a mentor with Dalhousie University, Jade has built relationships with undergraduate and graduate women in engineering, offering guidance on career planning and professional development — work that grew out of her earlier involvement with Dalhousie’s BIPOC Mentoring Academy and Women in Engineering programs. She has also served as a Student Ambassador at Queen’s University and previously as Run Director for Community Engagement with the Canadian Cancer Society’s CIBC Run for the Cure. Wherever Jade goes, she seems to leave the community a little stronger than she found it. 

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In recognition of her technical leadership at Lockheed Martin Canada and her sustained investment in the engineers around her, Jade Farr, P.Eng., is the recipient of the 2026 L.A. White Young Engineer Award.