This is one profile in a set on the operators that AE Industrial Partners hires as its operating partners, the people a private equity firm pays to guide the companies it owns. The pattern behind who gets the seat is laid out in Built to Be Bought. Marc Duvall earned his through sheer operating scale. He ran a five-billion-dollar aerospace division and made it bigger.
The division he ran
Duvall was President of Collins Aerostructures, a division that his AE Industrial bio puts at five billion dollars in size, designing, manufacturing, and servicing engine nacelles, thrust reverser systems, and aircraft structural components. He led it for about twelve years, and during that time the business more than doubled while building a reputation for lean manufacturing and aftermarket performance. The division was formerly Goodrich Aerostructures and became part of Collins Aerospace under Raytheon Technologies, per AE Industrial's announcement of his hire. Running a business at that scale, and growing it, is the whole of his qualifying credential.
A career in the aerospace supply chain
Duvall spent more than 35 years in senior leadership across AlliedSignal, Honeywell, Goodrich, and Raytheon Technologies. Before Collins Aerostructures he was President of Goodrich's Engine Control and Electric Power Systems Division in the United Kingdom, and earlier he held vice-president and general-manager roles across Honeywell Aerospace and Honeywell Industrial, plus engineering and business-development posts at AlliedSignal, per his AE Industrial bio. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and an MBA, both from Arizona State University.
What AeroEquity did with him
AE Industrial named Duvall an Operating Partner in August 2022, and in December of that year installed him as CEO of its portfolio company Applied Composites, an advanced-composites supplier for aerospace, space, and defense, per the Applied Composites appointment. He retired as CEO effective September 15, 2025 and stayed on the board, per the company's CEO transition notice. He also sat on the boards of Belcan before its 2024 sale to Cognizant and Edge Autonomy before its 2025 sale to Redwire, per his AE Industrial bio.
The door he walked through
Duvall is the large-operator profile. He did not found a company and he did not hold a military command. He ran a multibillion-dollar aerospace business as its president and doubled it. When AE Industrial's managing partner David Rowe announced the hire, he framed it exactly that way, citing Duvall's "strong knowledge of the aerospace supply chain" and his "proven operating track record," per the announcement. That is the door: run something big, prove you can grow it, and a private equity firm will pay you to do it again inside its portfolio.
Related reading
- Built to Be Bought: the full playbook of building a company to be bought and keeping the equity after.
- Bill Boisture, who ran Gulfstream, NetJets, and Hawker Beechcraft: another large-aerospace operator on the bench.
- Paul Fulchino, who sold Aviall to Boeing: the operator who ran and sold a large parts business.
- Gary Mercer, 36 years engineering GE's jet engines: the engineering-leadership version of the same credential.
Fact-check notes and sources
- President of Collins Aerostructures, a five-billion-dollar division, for about twelve years, during which it more than doubled; more than a 35-year career across AlliedSignal, Honeywell, Goodrich, and Raytheon Technologies; the Goodrich Engine Control and Honeywell roles; Arizona State degrees; board seats at Belcan and Edge Autonomy: his AE Industrial bio and the hiring announcement. Career-length figures differ slightly across sources, from "more than 35 years" in the bio to "over 40 years" in the release; exact Collins Aerostructures tenure years are not pinned down.
- CEO of Applied Composites from December 2022: the Applied Composites appointment. Retirement as CEO effective September 15, 2025, remaining on the board: the CEO transition notice. Deal values for the Belcan and Edge Autonomy transactions were not part of his direct credential and are not asserted here.
This post is informational and journalistic, describing publicly reported people, companies, and transactions. It is not investment, tax, legal, or M&A advice. All parties are discussed from public records and their own published statements as nominative fair use, with no affiliation implied and nothing endorsed by them.
