By Nora Blum
Senior Systems Engineering Manager Elena Balasa remembers long nights doing homework beside the flicker of a wax candle in a cup, the only source of light in her family’s 530-square-foot apartment.
Growing up in Craiova, Romania during the 1980s meant living through a period marked by social and economic strife. Strict rationing and frequent shortages made life difficult, and Elena was only 14 when the standard of living began to steadily deteriorate throughout the country.
“Food, heat, water and electricity was basically non-existent,” said Elena. “I could only take a bath once per week. We had no clothes, no shoes… everything was empty.”
Elena’s mother, a cable phone operator, was not allowed to go to college, and lived on just one meal per day. Her father, who grew up on a farm with a dirt floor and no electricity, worked as a nurse in small village far from town, and learned to harvest vegetables and raise chickens so that his family could eat.
Elena knew that a better life was out there – and she was determined to find it.
“We had no liberty, no freedom,” she said. “The only way to do better was to get a college degree.”
And despite the odds stacked against her, that’s exactly what she did.
Seeing Hope
Elena was not only the first in her family, but the first in her entire neighborhood to attend college — a huge source of pride for her community. Admission was extremely competitive, and the academics were even tougher. By Elena’s second year of college, only half of the students passed, and Elena was met with doubt from her professors, peers and parents, who felt that majoring in mechanical engineering would be too difficult. But, despite only 25% of her classmates graduating, Elena successfully completed her degree.
Upon graduating in 1991, Elena faced a scarce job market during a devastating period of economic recession following the 1989 Romanian revolution. That’s when Elena and her husband decided they needed to do whatever they could to earn enough money to start a new life outside of Romania.
“I tailored, I knitted, I gave private classes – I did everything I could to survive,” she said. “We couldn’t take it anymore. We needed to leave.”
Elena eventually landed a job as a quality technician, where she earned $130 per month. “At the time, that was a fortune,” she said. “We finally started to see hope.”
A New Life
The hardships Elena faced growing up taught her that hard work and perseverance could open doors. By 2004, after countless long shifts at work — sometimes up to 34 consecutive hours — Elena and her husband dreamed of building a better life in the United States. That’s when finally, after years of trying to obtain citizenship, Elena’s husband was offered a job in Salt Lake City – and they knew it was their golden ticket to the life they had been dreaming of. Much to the shock of their parents and community, they immigrated to the United States, leaving all their possessions behind with no plans to return to life as they once knew it.
Elena soon secured a job of her own in Salt Lake City, and shortly after arriving in the United States, gave birth to her first child. “Nothing about adapting to a new country was easy,” she said. “But I continued to improve my English, I took leadership classes, and I got an MBA so that I could learn new skills and earn more for my family.”
Eighteen years later, in 2022, Elena joined Northrop Grumman after a program manager with the company recommended that she apply. She has found a network of supportive colleagues through her involvement with employee resource groups such as Northrop Grumman Women’s International Network (NGWIN) and NGFAMILY. Elena is passionate about mentoring others and teaching them the power of perseverance, which she considers to be a driving force behind her success.
“I’m like a weed that finds the cracks in the sidewalk to get to where I want to go,” she said. “The life I’m living now, I couldn’t have even dreamed about.”
